Child life,
Shaftesbury, Edmund, 1852-1926
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Your Club-number may be obtained by procuring a copy of the Took of General {Membership of the Ralston Health Club, and using page 23 of that volume. You should then write your Club-number in the space reserved for it on this page. ( v.v.v.v. v. .v.v.v.v .V .V.-.V .V V. /v:::-\.<v->:::vx-- vyXyXvX ;4 ''•v!vXv!v>:.. ••x4-v v/A Vi. i.-., -•i-‘ v« .. Hfe* r.v. v.*:v .; ..WAV ... Ipit S' : tf&x# :: ill! •. .v.v.v.v. X;avX;X .; ; IvXvXX t • XwXvX .• .viwXv ! • vXvXvX f avXva ./ ©HIDE) LIF6 -BY- EDMUND SHAFTESBURY. \s Jk. Solution of I^epplo^iiri g I^poblerqs. -±ii IN FIVE GRAND DIVISIONS 1. — BEFORE BIRTH — Origin and Development. 2. — AT BIRTH — A guarantee of absolute safety to mother and child. 3. — DURING INFANCY— A daily guide. 4.- ENTERING CHILDHOOD— A daily guide. 5.— LEAVING CHILDHOOD— A daily guide. A BOOK OF Diet, Care and Treatment. Issued by thje HAESTOJY HEALTH @lub, WasHrigtor), E). ©• PRICE, TWO DOLLARS. _ Copyrighted 1897, BY RALSTON HEALTH CLUB ASSOCIATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. JZ-szoJ 4 / PURPOSES OP THIS YOUUME 1. To convey facts. 2. To counteract the impressions created by false notions, erroneous traditions, and untrustworthy literature on the subjects herein presented. 3. To protect woman against the abuses of which she is a victim. 4. To save the mother from death and from unnecessary suffer¬ ing at the delivery of her child. 5. To perfect the condition of the child that the offspring may not be deficient, marred, or sickly. 6. To enable the mother to maintain her health under all cir¬ cumstances. 7. To supply information to the parents that shall accurately guide them in their parentage. 8. To lay the foundation for the better race of human beings by starting life aright. 9. To solve in the light of the most recent science the many perplexing problems of the origin of the child. First Grand Division Child Life BEFORE BIRTH ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I. [the relation of the club to child life.] DEGREES OF RALSTONISM. HE Ralston Health Club is the father of this little volume, as is well known. No organization or movement 1 of modern times has created so wide-spread an interest, or accomplished so much practical good for men and women as has this club. It is growing rapidly. It is everywhere attracting attention; and, when its real purpose is known, all classes of worthy people, from the proudest to the humblest, embrace its doctrines and eagerly ask the privilege of aiding in the spread of its influence. It is because you will soon make a like request that this chapter is written. Child Life is valuable to every parent, whether man or woman ; but its value is increased a hundredfold by using it in conjunction with the General Membership Book of the Ral¬ ston Health Club. In other words, this volume of Child Life and that of General Membership are like wife and husband, best always in each other’s company; their offspring, perfect health, happiness, a home of content, and a life of prosperity. These are the four children of the wedded volumes. Ill health handicaps many per¬ sons ; success must be founded upon the clearest faculties, rightly used. Of the many lives of failures, due to a deficient mental capacity or sickness of the body, a large majority would have been turned into the channels of prosperity had the health been vigor¬ ous and the judgment accurate by reason of brain strength. That Ralstonism accomplishes what no other power has been able to achieve, is too well proved to be discussed. Hence the value of the companionship of the two books. A careful perusal of the next chapter will interest you in the Ralston Principles, and in the work of spreading them broad¬ cast over the world. Wherever they go their progress is rapid, and their results are marked by the changes for the better in the 8 CHILD LIFE lives they affect. Onward is our motto. New members are every¬ where sought. Ralstonism must spread at whatever cost. Ral- stonites very willingly engage in the work of securing recruits ; from the Governors of great States to the humblest toilers in the shop ; from the richest and most powerful women in society to the earnest mother in the cot. The spirit seizes them very soon. They find the object a noble one. Their good judgment is quickly in command. New members, more Ralstonites, must be obtained, and they leave no stone unturned in their splendid efforts to carry on the grandest movement of modern times. Efforts so freely made should not, and do not, go unre¬ warded. As each new recruit is secured, the Ralstonite advances one degree in token of the victory. There are one hundred degrees. For every General Membership purchased by any member having a club number, so we can record the fact, one degree is advanced. Thus, if you possessed a General Membership Book, and wished to advance to the fifth degree at once, so as to receive the great volume of Complete Membership free as an emolument, you could do so by purchasing five copies of General Membership and sending fifty cents for record fees, whereupon the emolument would be' yours. Any time afterward, at your leisure, you could sell to others the five books you had purchased, adding ten cents to each for your trouble, and the very valuable emolument would then have been clearly and cleanly earned. By this excellent system, now well tested and appreciated, one hundred dollars’ worth of the most costly emoluments are obtained without any cost whatever ; and thus we reward the efforts of our members to spread Ralstonism. Thousands and tens of thousands are now advancing in degrees by this simple and effective method. The privilege of taking degrees in the same club is now to be extended to those who wish to use the present volume, Child Life , as a basis for advancing in such rank. The only condi¬ tion is that you own a copy of the Book of General Membership, and have a club number for identification. This being the case, the following special opportunity to make progress is extended to you, as stated in the rules ; which are : 1. You must mention your club number, so that we can find your record on our books by referring to it. 2. You must obtain not less than five copies of Child Life at a time, and these will entitle you to advance five degrees. RALSTONISM 9 3. The regular retail price of Child Life is $2.00. The lowest wholesale price is $1.25. The latter is the rate per copy at which you may procure them. You may charge the retail price, and should do so in selling to other, unless you choose to favor friends. 4. Degrees advanced in this way will be added to degrees already secured by you in the usual way. 5. The emoluments, as soon as reached, will be sent to you; but no emolument will be substituted for another. 6. It is agreed that, in case you do not oblige us by adhering to these simple rules, you will receive full value of your remittance in copies of Child Life , at $1.25 each; but will not advance degrees. 7. The following form must be used. This is strictly required. Copy it in ink. FORM. To Ralston Health Club, Washington, D. C. : I enclose herewith money-order (or draft, express order, or cash registered) for $6.25 under the rules. Send me five copies of Child Life , and advance me five degrees as a Ralstonite. My club- number is . My name and address are. Copy the foregoing, and write your address very carefully, so that the books may reach you promptly. We pay all charges of sending. Prepaid. Believing that the wide-spread circulation of Child Life will accomplish a vast amount of good, the results of which will be far-reaching in their influence on the life of the nation, we propose to make an exception to the rule usually adopted by pub¬ lishers, and to Iprepay the cost of sending these books, whether sold at the retail price of $2.00, or the wholesale rate of $1.25 in lots of five. And now an explanation why this chapter opens this vol¬ ume. All we need say is this: Child Life has been written for members of the Ralston Health Club by their special request ; and this request has been most urgent, amounting in fact to a demand. Thousands upon thousands of letters have been sent to us urging the preparation of a volume dedicated to the child, and its welfare; and to the care and safety of mothers in delivery. We waited until the pressure was too great to be resisted. Accompanying these demands were promises to aid in extending the influence of Ralstonism, by commencing where all great human changes should commence, namely, at the cradle ; 10 CHILD LIFE from which the better race may be molded so carefully in its early years that its supremacy may follow as a natural sequence. It was charged against the Ralston Club that it neglected the very best of all opportunities by remaining silent on the subject of children and infants. From these observations it will be seen : First, that we were compelled to produce Child Life. Second, that the work is written for Ralstonites. Third, that members of the Ralston Health Club having made an overwhelming demand for the book, a due recognition should be given of their relations to the volume and its future missionary work. This chapter means much to them ; as it opens an associate method by which they may advance in degrees in Ralstonism. To an outsider this advantage may be meaningless; but to a Ralston- ite it is of the very greatest importance. This, then, is our excuse for dedicating the very first chapter of Child Life to the most worthy of men and women, the true Ralstonites. CHAPTER II. BROKEN AND UNBROKEN LINES. EVERY human being was once a child ; was once an infant, so helpless that a brief period of neglect meant death ; was once a foetus, maturing and ripening in its imprisoned home; was once an embryo, struggling to take on the shape of man out of a mass of protoplasmic cells ; was once a germ too small to be seen ; was once nothing. Out of the great sea of absolute emptiness we came ; to what ocean we float on the drifting tide of life, no one can tell. Before we were born other people lived. They had parents, or they could not have lived. Their ancestry was the surest thing in the whirl of a thousand uncertainties ; for their parents could not have been on earth, had they not had ancestors; and they, too, had theirs. Where the beginning was no one knows. If there was a limit, it must have been a most remarkable occurrence ; and the breaking off of this ancestry, as we trace humanity backward, would be to our modern minds a tremendous event. Think, if you can, of this big globe rolling in space, an¬ swering to the call of night and day, warming and freezing as the seasons alternated ; yet all deserted ; still as the silence of deep solitude; empty of life, while the clouds rained, the rivers ran singing to the seas, the lightnings played merrily from sky to hill¬ top, the sun shone in blistering heat, and the moon clad herself in garments of silver to lead the glittering host of heaven along the pathway of the night. The little brook whose music is filled with melody to-day, was just as blithesome in the aeons that preceded the foot-steps of primitive man. You are the link in this long chain that, at some time, had a beginning. The continuance of the succession depends upon you. If you die childless, the chain is broken, is ended. No other being, in the future years, can take it up, or revive the issue. From the earliest era the succession has had no break, not one ; for a single omission meant extermination. This chain that will be forever ended unless you continue it, is ten thousand years long, or more; nor can you name a possibility whereby it might have been sus- (ii) 12 CHILD LIFE pended, and yet survived. Had there been one break only, in its hundred centuries, you would never have been born. Whether the enormous importance of this fact impresses you or not, we can¬ not tell. It is true, you will say that others will more than make up for the omission on your part ; but they cannot continue the lineage you cut off. Nor would it do, in principle, to say that others may take your place ; for if all others took your place in non-production, the race would become extinct ; and, less than a century hence, the sun would rise on a world suddenly depleted of its humanity. Even as it is, a simple agreement enacted by all persons, to bring no more children into being, would end all. If you are a decent and intelligent person, and you must be, or these pages would not hold your attention, it is your duty to keep alive a line of ancestry, now already ten thousand years long, and that has not had a single break in it since the first man appeared on earth. If you are grossly ignorant and unfit to pro¬ duce offspring, your race ought to end with your natural death. The point is this : the best physical, mental and moral types of men and women are slow to reproduce their kind, and they aim to bring into the world the fewest children possible ; while, on the other hand, the lower classes, the indecent, ignorant, criminal, weak-minded types of men and women are stocking the land with their hordes of offspring whose numbers are fast outstripping the desirable classes. This portends evil, and has been the gravest problem in all the history of the world. It is true that intelligence and refinement are powerful influences in keeping the family small, for when a wife knows how to prevent maternity she will avail her¬ self of that knowledge, and with money to spend on fashionable practitioners parents will limit their duty, some to one child, others to two or three, when a minimum of four is required under the existing national conditions. Poverty offers no barrier to the increase of the family. Where ignorance, amounting almost to imbecility holds sway, nature is left to take its course, regardless of the ability, or even the willingness of parents to bring up the children. They come into the world helpless and innocent, with a right to be fed, clothed and educated, but they are half-starved, exposed to disease, and left to develop the criminal tendencies they already own by in¬ heritance. This has always been so, and always will be so until the combined strength of intelligent men and women shall operate BEFORE BIRTH 13 to apply the only remedy that can lessen the evil. It is to this end that these pages are issued. The author of this volume never writes without a purpose amounting to a mission in life, and the duty that he sees and feels clearly devolving upon him at this time is to press home the fact that the deep-rooted disease of this nation requires the immediate application of the remedy, or history will repeat itself here as else¬ where. A man made well by a vigorous life can digest a certain proportion of bad food every day, but when the proportion increases week by week and month by month until his system is overstocked with poison, he is no longer able to withstand the malady ; so with a nation. Allowing that its criminal and imbecile classes are only the equal of the decent and intelligent classes in numbers and in¬ fluence, the knowledge and moral prestige of the latter will digest, eliminate, or hold in check the dangerous element; but let the vicious-half grow to three-fourths and the task becomes more difficult ; let the men and women who would, if they dared, live by fraud, murder, and all the offenses of the criminal code extend their proportion to seven- eighths, as is already the case in some parts of the world, and the nation must succumb to the cancer. There are three ways by which to stem the progress of this dangerous disease, one is by revolution, another by punish¬ ment, another by regulating child life. All peoples from the dawn of history have rebelled, either as a nation or in sections of their national structure. The inevitable must always occur. In every country the extra increase of the families of crime, ignorance and imbecility has caused a loss of control by the intelligence of the people and disaster has followed. The French revolution was simply the bursting of the sore that for generations had been fester¬ ing to a head. The overwhelming majority of vice was able by numbers alone to level the monarchy to the ground, dethrone the king and queen, cut off their heads, and hold them bleeding before the appalled army, the protector of power. Crime and imbecility wait only until intelligent leaders are found who know how to ex¬ pand their ignorant prejudices into flames of revolt and murder. In America such leaders abound. Every now and then they imagine that the moment has arrived, but it is not yet ripe. Proudest among the nations of Old Europe is England ; hut eight revolutions have swept her out of integral existence, and she is ruled to-day by a combination of French and German de- 14 CHILD LIFE scent. Queen Victoria is a German, and her nobility are largely French. When William the Conqueror landed in England, he found very little to conquer, except vice and ignorance ; these he used in founding his system of slavery, called, for convenience sake, serfdom by the historians of that country. The French were the masters and the English the slaves. Later on, when the vicious classes had sadly outnumbered their superiors, the latter inaugurated the system now so severely condemned, known as the penal code, that destroyed the lives of the unworthy. This method can never receive the sanction of Christian people, for it is wrong in principle ; yet it has saved England a score of times in the last three hundred years. The plan was to execute every person whose crimes indicated an unworthiness to become the propagator of the race. In an age when five millions dwelt in England, of whom four millions were dangerous to the life of the nation, and still more dangerous if they were allowed to propagate twenty millions as against one million of the better classes, the government pro¬ ceeded to lop off the possible mothers for serious offenses and the possible fathers for all offenses, light or serious. To steal an apple, or to threaten assault, was punishable by death, if the moral con¬ dition was low. One million people in power, holding ignorance as its tools, could, in one generation, check the progress of the majority, and could even exterminate them, should it so choose. The slaughter under the law, by sanction of the law and in private, covered so enormous a total of criminals, that it practically saved England. To-day she survives because she knows the greater number of her felons ; she watches them ; keeps them in prison ; and their children she holds in check in such a way that they do not become parents. In spite of these precautions, the offspring of criminals, generally illegitimate, are continually appearing in the large cities, especially in London, a world by itself ; but the power of English intelligence, the most forcible on earth, is mani¬ fested in two methods of dealing with these classes ; first, she per¬ mits bawdy houses to exist by the thousand, where children are rarely born ; second, she sees to it that infants unfit to grow up and become citizens do not mature. While public records and open reports do not proclaim these facts, they exist nevertheless, and can be verified by any person who cares to take the trouble. Thus, with her prisons, her bawdy houses and her unwritten law of infanticide, England maintains her national safety. BEFORE BIRTH 15 As the methods are wrong in principle, they cannot be endorsed. We said there were three courses of procedure — revo¬ lution, punishment and child life. In America punishment will never be employed to decrease the criminals and imbeciles. Two remedies only are possible, revolution and child life. Revolution is cruel. It is simply the accumulation of vice, crime and insanity, grown to such numbers that force gives them temporary power ; they then kill many of their enemies, the decent and intelligent people ; burn their houses ; destroy public buildings ; and, having tired of innocent blood, turn upon themselves and murder one another, until their majority is reduced to a minority. This is the story of the French Revolution. It is the story of every nation and people since history was enacted. To this end the American public is moving fast. The advance army of the red-handed host always leads the way, in the guise of agitators and assailants against the laws of peace and morality. This advance army is here. The prosperity of business, labor and farming is laid low by the continual turmoil of politics, due to the hundred thousand political agitators in the country. At any moment, when vice, ignorance and imbecility are aroused from their fears, they are able to lay low every institution and home in this fair land. Child Life has a mission to perform if it is not too late. It is the third remedy ; and the only one that is humane and Christian-like. It does not believe that the offspring should be punished for the criminal disposition inherited from guilty parents ; but it does believe that the right of guilty parents to bring criminal offspring in the world should be checked. It believes that two million Caucasians whose intellect is so low that they and their children are dangerous members of society ; that one million imbe¬ cile Caucasians ; that eight million criminal Caucasians ; that seven million imbecile negroes ; and one million criminal negroes ; or a total of nineteen millions of unfit, dangerous and prolific propa¬ gators of humanity should be deprived of bringing into the world annually a vast horde of children that must, by their excessive numbers, soon threaten the life of the nation. It believes that such propagation should be stopped at once, if it may be done so without injustice to any person. In the first grand division of the present volume, Child Life will perform its mission in this direction. CHAPTER III. WOMAN’S MISSION ON EARTH. [ZIEZ] IN normal conditions every woman should bear chil¬ dren. This is the 11th Ralston Principle. These principles are the eternal truths of nature, and no person can afford to ignore them. They are scattered through various books, all blended into one system of knowledge, so prepared that they may be easily understood by all who read. Very few indeed of the Ralston Principles are limited to either sex. Out of the total number of one thousand, less than ten, or one per cent, are in¬ tended for women only. They apply to humanity, arid matters involving the interests and welfare of humanity, alike to both sexes. Every true lover of right methods, of eternal justice in the administration of Nature, should accept the Ralston Principles, which are Nature’s laws; or should accept as many of them as may be understood. Time alone is required to make them all appreciated and welcome; for some are new, in vital form, to readers whose investigations have been limited. Hope and ambi¬ tion are essential to happiness in life, and happiness is essential to health. The best presentation of hope and ambition is found in the thousand Ralston Principles, contained in the necessary books of the course, of which there are an exact number, each devoted to some great work. The acceptance of many, if not all, of the thousand Ral¬ ston Principles, is an act of importance, and it ought to be an act of pleasure, owing to the great help they will be ever afterward to the life of the person accepting them. Some persons may delight to keep a record of them by numbers, and the date of conversion to any one or more of these crystallized truths, may be recorded against the number. Others will go so far as to commit to memory the entire thousand, and know them instantly by their numbers ; as No. 1 contains such a law, repeating it; or No. 963 contains (16) BEFORE BIRTH 17 such another law, repeating that. In the not very distant future the Ralston Principles will be so committed to memory ; for they contain a complete equipment of mind and matter for human life on earth, or immortal aspirations toward the hereafter. As will be admitted by all who read them, no University, for man or woman, can impart so broad a field of education, of learning, of culture, of philosophy, of practical knowledge, or of thorough and lasting preparation for the real duties of life, as these thousand Ralston Principles. Let any person, of either sex, be conversant with these unchanging laws, from the beginning to the end of the system ; and it is quite safe to say that such person is equipped for the battle of life, is ready to meet the world and the ablest competitors in it, to discuss any question under any circumstances, and to take rank with the foremost educators of the day. This is a great deal. But the Ralston Principles are a perfected compre¬ hensive University in the form of books ; and are finely appreciated as the least costly means of thorough education to be had. The books required are fewer in number, are much larger, and far more valuable, while less expensive than any set of books called for in University training, or in any profession. They con¬ tain the gems of knowledge brought from a hundred thousand volumes, into eleven. They are never technical, never verbose, never dull. It is for the reason of their great concentration that all persons should seek to master them, and thus understand fully the principles that are crystallized in their pages. Reading around these laws is valuable. Studying and reviewing the principles, until you are finally led to accept them, is still more important ; and keeping a record of them by numbers, in some blank book, devoted exclusively to the purpose, is warmly advised. It is pleasant to report to the Ralston Club, Washington, D. C., such Ralston Principles as you accept and the date of each acceptance. Refer to them by numbers, and we shall then know the volume and class of principles accepted, as there are a fixed number of them in each of the eleven volumes of the system. They are classified according to the great divisions of human interest. Thus, the few presented in this little book, which is but one part or adjunct to a larger volume, are devoted exclusively to the questions involved in the consideration of child life. These introductory remarks may be concluded with the statement that, in order to reap the largest measure of benefit to 18 CHILD LIFE yourself, the way should be paved to the spreading of the Ralston Principles ; on the theory that what is general or universal, is of greater advantage to each individual. An example of this is seen in communities where there are but few Ralstonites ; it is difficult to obtain the pure foods, wholesome regulations and excellent cus¬ toms that are found in other places where there are many Ralston¬ ites. In union there is strength. No person is more directly interested in the spread of these doctrines than you. We are making every possible effort to increase the membership of the club, for this very reason ; and the many emoluments offered, are intended to spread our membership very rapidly. But we are, of course, dependent upon the influence of Ralstonites, of whom we hope you are one. We are urging them, in all ways, to aid us in this one great purpose — the spread of Ralstonism. For this reason we desire to give you special encouragement, by asking you to take advantage of the DEGREES stated in the opening chapter of this volume. Do not pass it idly by; it means much to you, and much to the club. We thus come naturally to an examination of these laws that are clothed with so much importance. In normal con¬ ditions every woman should bear children. The conditions known as normal, in this respect, are marriage, health and fitness. As has been stated in another volume, all persons should marry, when the conditions are normal ; and the reasons are given quite freely. In this book we deal with the child question exclusively, and that includes its antecedents. Marriage in a male should not take place until after the age of twenty-one. The best children are born of mature men and young women. A girl who has en¬ tered upon the functions of womanhood, may, two years there¬ after, marry with perfect safety, provided the functions have been regularly established. While the ideal marriage is that of a ma¬ ture man and young girl, it does not, by any means, follow that this unusual combination is easily obtainable ; and it, therefore, cannot be the subject of the present treatise. Mothers do not know, nor are they readily convinced, that extremely youthful wives make the best women in every sense. Society decrees otherwise, and otherwise it must be. The chief fault in such marriages is the youth of the husband. Out of a collec¬ tion of twenty instances of girls under sixteen wedded to men over thirty, where the facts were authenticated more than ten years after- BEFORE EIRTH 19 ward, it appeared, without a single exception, that the marriages were happy and prosperous. Eighteen of the husbands had ac¬ cumulated wealth since taking wives. If the best purposes of na¬ ture were to be adopted, or could be adopted — we are sorry to say they cannot — a girl should marry at fifteen, have her first child at sixteen, her second at twenty, her third at twenty-five, and her fourth at thirty; and she should bear no more after that age. Four children are the complement of any woman’s debt to the world ; to exceed that number is to make an unjust draft upon her system. It is, perhaps, presumptuous to give advice as to marriage and child-bearing to women who have never yet selected a hus¬ band and are not likely to do so, for some years at least ; but our purpose is to deal with exceptions rather than with the ideal methods of nature. Although uniformity of results cannot be ob¬ tained in all cases, it is nearly always true that a young wife be¬ comes a more sensible, more moral, and more attractive woman, than girls who spend their youthful years in any other way, how¬ ever advantageous it may seem. But as the majority of women are married at an age more advanced, many when past thirty, they stand in greater need of advice and care than if they had entered the wedded state at an earlier period, when the body is more supple and the processes easier and safer. Child-bearing is never dangerous under the age of twenty, unless the wife is sickly or extremely lazy ; but, as each year is added, a degree of doubt must be added also ; past thirty the wife has much to fear in her first maternity. Every woman owes to the world a duty that she can¬ not honorably avoid, if the conditions are favorable. Her realm is her home, her crown is the record of four healthy children brought into existence. Two persons, reproducing two only, would lay the foundation for the extinction of the race ; as not all persons would reproduce. If no children were born, the death- knell of humanity would be sounded a few years hence. If the refined and intelligent parents are to omit the duty of rearing families, the ignorant and criminal classes must soon control the entire race. The best women should bring the greater number of children into the world for the sake of the nation’s future welfare. 