Plutarch on Carthage

…with full knowledge and understanding they themselves offered up their own children and those who had no children would buy little ones from poor people and cut their throats as if they were so many lambs or young birds; meanwhile the mother stood by without a tear or moan; but should she utter a single moan or let fall a single tear, she had to forfeit the money, and her child was sacrificed nevertheless; and the whole area before the statue was filled with a loud noise of flutes and drums so that the cries of wailing should reach the ears of the people.

St. Paul

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

Greek physician Galen (c. 175 a.d.)

The normal child is healthy in every way. His manners need no correcting. Instead, what is important is to prevent corruption… We must take care with each of the things which offer the chance of corruption:> children's manners may be corrupted by bad habits in eating and drinking, in the patterns of exercise and shows, in all the things they see or hear, and in all other areas of culture.

When handling small children who are healthy, it is important to avoid excessive disturbance. So, when they cry or scream or are upset, we should understand that it means something is disturbing them, and we must try to discover what they need and give it to them before their minds and bodies become more overly excited. When they are teething or hurt somewhere from outside cause, or when they want to move their bowels or urinate or are hungry or thirsty, they show their needs by a continuous restlessness as if distressed. They suffer because they are cold and want to be warm, or are too hot and want to be cool, or are uncomfortable in their swaddling bands, for swaddling bands can be uncomfortable when children want to move from side to side or move their arms or legs. And even quiet itself can be a burden to them….
When they cry or are unhappy, not the least of solutions is to place the child at the breast. From experience, nurses have noted three remedies for children's distress: one, that already mentioned, and the other two are gentle movement and singing which quiets the child and induces sleep.

Friar Bartholomew

Small children be soft of flesh, lithe and pliant of body.
Quick and light to move and ready to learn
And they lead their lives without thought or care
They set their hearts only on fun and are afraid of nothing but being beaten with a rod
And they love an apple better than gold.
Whether they be praised or shamed or blamed they care little
They are soon angered and soon pleased and easily forgive.
Since all children be spotted with bad manners and think only of the present they love play, games, and vanity.
They want things that are bad for them
And care more about their dolls than their persons.
When they are washed they are soon dirty again.
They're always wanting a drink.
They're no sooner out of bed before they're crying for something to eat.

Lady Jane Grey

One of the greatest benefits that God ever gave me is that he sent me so sharp and severe parents…. For when I am in presence of either father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing or doing anything else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even so perfectly as God made ;the world, else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea presenting sometimes with pinches, nippes, and bobs, and some ways which I will not name for the honour I bear them, so without measure misordered, that I think myself in hell.

John Robinson, On Children, 1630

Surely there is in all children...a stubbornness and stoutness of mind arising from natural pride, which must, in the first place be broken and beaten down; that so the foundation of their education being laid in humility and tractableness, other virtues may, in their time, be built thereon. For the beating and keeping down of this stubbornness parents must provide carefully...that the children's wills and willfulness be restrained and repressed, and that, in time; lest sooner than they imagine, the tender springs grow to that stiffness, that they will rather break than bow.

Michael Wigglesworth's widely popular Day of Doom, published in 1662, offers a corrective. Wigglesworth, a Puritan Divine, depicts unbaptized infants pleading for mercy at the Last Judgment only to be told:

You sinners are, and such a share
As sinners may expect,
Such you shall have; for I do save
None but my own elect.
Yet to compare your sin, with theirs
Who lived a longer time,
I do confess yours so much less
Tho' every sin's a crime.
A crime it is, therefore in bliss
You may not hope to dwell;
But unto you, I shall allow
The easiest room in Hell.

In 1642 Massachusetts enacted a law that was amplified six years later to require parents to teach their children and apprentices to: read, and have a knowledge of the Ten Commandments, once a week at least catechize, and teach the principles of religion. The neglect of this was a penalty of a fine. (Massachusetts Laws of 1648, pg. 11)

In 1647 the General Court of Massachusetts provided for the establishment of reading schools, because "one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, is to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures.
--Massachusetts Laws of 1648 pg 47

Samuel Willard, 1679

1. they are all born in Ignorance Rom 3:17 without the knowledge and fear of God they must have it by doctrine and institution. 2ly this ignorance layeth them open to Satan to lead them whither he will. 3ly holdeth them under the Power and efficacy of sin a blind mind and dead conscience are companions. Hence they sin without shame; ignorance stops the activity of all the faculties. 4ly as long as they remain in their natural ignorance there is no hope of being freed from everlasting misery. If you have any Compassion for them take Pains that they may know God. 5ly Hardness of heart, alienation from God Springs from ignorance and 6ly they hence are inclined to fulfill their own evil will.

Thomas Cobbett, A fruitfull and Usefull Discourse

…The greatest love and faithfulness which Parents as Covenanters can shew to God, and to their Children, who in and with themselves, are joynt Covenanters with God, is so to educate them, that what in them lieth, the conditions of the Covenant may be attended by their Children, and so the whole Covenant fully effected, in the promised mercies of it also to them, and to their Children."

Richard Mather, Farewell Exhortation

All this that we here suffer is through you: You should have taught us the things of God, and did not, you should have restrained us from Sin and corrected us, and you did not: You were the means of our Original Corruption and guiltiness, and yet you never shewed any competent care that we might de delivered from it, from you we did receive it, by your neglect we have continued in it, and now we are damned for it: Woe unto us that we had such Carnal and careless parents, and woe unto you that had no more Compassion and pitty to prevent the everlasting misery of your own Children.

Benjamin Wadsworth, Nature of Early Piety

Their Hearts naturally, are a mere nest, root, fountain of Sin, and wickedness; an evil Treasure from whence proceed evil things, viz. Evil thoughts, Murders, Adulteries, Etc. Indeed, as sharers in the guilt of Adam's first Sin, they're Children of Wrath by Nature, liable to Eternal Vengeance, the Unquenchable Flames of Hell. But besides this, their Hearts (as hath been said) are unspeakably wicked, estrang'd from God, enmity against Him, eagerly set in pursuing Vanities, on provoking God by actual Personal transgressions, whereby they merit and deserve greater measures of Wrath.

Samuel Sewall, Diary

Betty Sewall, at the age of five or six, burst into tears when she feared she "was like Spira, not Elected"

On November 6, 1692 Samuel Sewell corrected Joseph (who was future minister of the Old South Church), for throwing "a knob of brass and hit his sister Betty on the forehead so as to make it bleed and swell; upon which, and for his playing at Prayer-time, and eating when Return Thanks, I whipd him pretty smartly."

Cotton Mather, Cares about the Nurseries

[Let] the children patter out by rote the words of the catechism, like Parrots; but be Inquisitive how far their Understandings do take in the Things of God."

Thomas Foxcroft in his Cleansing Our Way

...if we accustom ourselves to bear the Yoke in our Youth, it will afterwards fit more easy on our Necks, it will not gall and fret us: The Commands will not be grievous unto us. Custom will lighten the Burden and endear the Yoke.

Cotton Mather, Cares about the Nurseries

Endeavour that the Children may not only receive the Catechism into their Understandings, but also have their Affections and Practices conformed to what they understand...When we are Catechising our Children, we are Delivering unto them a Form of Doctrine; and we should contrive all the Charms imaginable, that their Hearts and Lives may be Moulded into that Form. As now; when we Teach our Children, what the Catechism says, about their Sin, their Original Sin, their Actual Sin, and the Wages of their Sin, we may let fall some such Admonition upon them; And, My Child, Is it not a sad thing to be a Sinner? Should not you seek above all things to be saved from your Sins? When we teach our Children, what are the Offices, or the Benefits of the Lord Jesus Christ, we may let fall some such word as this upon them; And, Child, Would you gladly have this done for you? Or, Don't you want such a Favour as this, from the Lord Jesus Christ? When we Teach our Children, what is Forbidden and what is Required in the commandments, we may let fall some such word as this upon them; And, Child, Will you beg of God, that He would preserve you from this Evil, and assist you to this Good?

Let us Try and Help their Understandings, by breaking every Answer of the Catechism into little Parcels by Questions, whereto YES, or NO, or one word or two, shall be all the Answer. To Exemplify it. You know the first Answer of that Catechism, which the famous Dr. Usher prounounced, The best Extant in the World, is This: Man's chief End is to Glorify God, and Enjoy Him forever. Well, when the Child has Recited this, then ask him; What? Then is there something that every man should propound unto himself as his chief end? And, What should a man make his chief end? Only to seek himself, or make himself great? Or, to Enjoy the Riches or Pleasures of this world? Or, Must we propound it as our chief end to Glorify God, and Enjoy Him forever? And, if we do actively Glorify God, shall come to Enjoy Him forever? There needs but, YES or, NO, to be answered unto all these Explanatory Questions: And by the YES or NO, you'll perceive whether the Child have minded the Answer in the Catechism.

Parents in regard to their Children, do bear a singular image of God, as he is the Creatour, Sustainer, and Governour.

When Parents by wise observations do perceive the bent, and bias of their Children, now let them carry it towards them accordingly. If they be strongly bent to some vice more than others, as Lying...admonish them betimes in the evil of it, represent to them what God speaketh, in especial wise against it, what sad examples and sequels, in Scripture and otherwise, both in point of sin, and in point in judgements, are found, thereof: after which course taken, then watch them the more narrowly, and spare them not for it, if they fall into lying again.

William Ames, Conscience with the Power and Cases Thereof (1643).

Present your Parents so to your minds, as bearing the Image of God's Fatherhood, and that also will help on your filial awe and Reverence to them.

Thomas Cobbett, Fruitfull Discourse

It stands not with Parents' Honour, for children to sit and speak, but rather they should stand up when they speak to Parents...due distance, fondness and familarity breeds and causeth contempt and irreverence in children."

Jane the daughter of Benjamin Colman, wrote a letter of appology to her father for being too familiar and his response was

You ask me to forgive the Flow of your Affections, which run with so swift a Current of filial Duty as may carry you beyond yourself sometimes, and make you wanting in that respect which you aim at expressing. It is true my Dear, that a young fond and musical Genius is easily carry'd away thus; and never more than when it runs into the Praises of what it loves; and I would have you therefore careful against this Error, even when you say your Thoughts of Reverence and Esteem to your Father, or to a Spouse, if ever you should live to have one. It is easy to be lavish and run into foolish Flatteries. I think you have done well to correct yourself for some of your Excursions of this kind toward me.

Memoirs of the Life and Death of the Pious and Ingenious Mrs. Jane Turell 1741.

Anne Bradstreet, "In Anne's Hand," 1664

Diverse children have their different natures; some are like flesh which nothing but salt will keep from putrefaction; some again like tender fruits that are best preserved with sugar…. those parents are wise that can fit their nurture according to their nature.

John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, 1690

Children [should] not be too warmly clad or covered, winter or summer…. [The child's] feet should be washed every day in cold water and [one should] have his shoes so thin that they leak and let in water whenever he comes near it…. I doubt not but if a man from his cradle had been always used to go barefoot whilst his hands were constantly wrapt up in warm mittens and covered with handshoes, as the Dutch call gloves, I doubt not, I say, but such a custom would make taking wet in his hands as dangerous to him as now taking wet in their feet is to a great many others….
I should advise him to play in the wind and sun without a hat [though] there would be a thousands objections against it."

The difference to be found in the manners and abilities of men, is owing more to their education than to anything else; we have reason to conclude, that great care is to be had of the forming [of] children's minds, and giving them that seasoning early, which shall influence their lives always after.

The great mistake I have observed in people's breeding their children has been…that the mind has not been made obedient to discipline, and pliant to reason, when at first it was most tender, most easy to be bowed. Parents being wisely ordained by nature to love their children, are very apt…to let it run into fondness. They love their little ones, and it is their duty; but they often with them cherish their faults too.

Thus parents, by humouring and cockering them when little, corrupt the principles of nature in their children, and wonder afterwards to taste the bitter waters, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain.

He that is not used to submit his will to the reason of others, when he is young, will scarce hearken or submit to this own reason, when he is of an age to make use of it.

Before they can go, they principle them with violence, revenge, and cruelty. "Give me a blow that I may beat him," is a lesson which most children every day hear: and it is thought nothing, because their hands have not strength enough to do any mischief. But I ask, does not this corrupt their minds? Is not this the way of force and violence, that they are set in?

It seems plain to me, that the principle of all virtue and excellency lies in a power of denying ourselves the satisfaction of our own desires, where reason does not authorize them.

Fear and awe ought to give you the first power over their minds, and love and friendship in riper years to hold them: for the time must come when they will be past the rod and correction; and then, if the love of you make them not obedient and dutiful; if the love of virtue and reputation keep them not in laudable courses; I ask, what hold will you have upon them, to turn them to it?

If the mind be curbed, and humbled too much in children; if their spirits be abased and broken much, by too strict an hand over them; they will lose all their vigour and industry….

Such a slavish discipline makes a slavish temper. The child submits, and dissembles obedience, whilst the fear of the rod hangs over him; but when that is removed, and , by being out of sight, he can promise himself impunity, he gives the greater scope to his natural inclination….

Crying is a fault that should not be tolerated in children…. Their crying is very often a striving for mastery, and an open declaration of their insolence or obstinacy: when they have not the power to obtain their desire, they will, by their clamour and sobbing, maintain their title and right to it.

When custom has fixed his eating to certain stated periods, his stomach will expect victuals at the usual hour and grow peevish if [it passes without a meal]…. Therefore, I would have no time kept constantly to for his breakfast, dinner and supper but rather [have them] varied almost every day.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, 1762

All things are good as they come out of the hands of the Creator, but everything degenerates in the hands of man…. [Man] mutilates his dogs, his horses, his slaves; he defaces, he confounds everything: he delights in deformity and monsters. He is not content with anything in its natural state, not even his own species. His very offspring must be trained up for him, like a horse in his ménage, and taught to grow up after his own fancy like a tree in his garden.

Observe nature and follow the path she traces for you. She exercises children continuously: she hardens their temperaments by tests of all sorts, she teaches them of happiness, of what pains and sadden. The teeth in piercing [the gums] give them fever, the sharp colic gives them convulsions, they are suffocated, plethora corrupts the blood, many illnesses breed in them and they break out with dangerous eruptions. Nearly all of infancy is filled with sickness and danger, the greater part of infants perish before their eighth year.

These tests make infants earn their strength and it is only afterwards that they can make use of life, that life becomes secure. That is the secret of nature. Why are you set against it? Don't you see that by thinking you can improve on it, destroy her labors and hinder the good effects of her care?

Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the author of things, everything degenerates in the hands of man.

You must choose between making a man and making a citizen, for you cannot do both at the same time.

All wickedness comes from weakness. . . . Make [the child] strong and he will be good.

Childhood has its ways of seeing, thinking, and feeling that are proper to it.

There is no original perversity in the human heart.

The first education ought thus to be purely negative. It consists not at all in teaching virtue or truth, but in preserving the heart from vice and the mind from error.

Put questions within [the child's] reach and let him solve them himself. Let him know nothing because you have told him, but because he has learned it for himself.

It is in doing good that we become good.

Susanna Wesley, 1732

Dear Son,--According to your desire, I have collected the principal rules I observed in educating my family.

When turned a year old (and some before), they were taught to fear the rod and to cry softly; by which means they escaped abundance of correction they might otherwise have had; and that most odious noise of the crying of children was rarely heard in the house, but the family usually lived in as much quietness as if there had not been a child among them.

In order to form the minds of children, the first thing to be done is to conquer their will and bring them to an obedient temper. To inform the understanding is a work of time and must with children proceed by slow degrees as they are able to bear it: but the subjecting the will is a thing which must be done at once; and the sooner the better. For by neglecting timely correction, they will contract a stubbornness and obstinacy which is hardly ever after conquered; and never, without using such severity as would be as painful to me as to the child. In the esteem of the world they pass for kind and indulgent, whom I call cruel, parents, who permit their children to get habits which they know must be afterward broken. Nay, some are so stupidly fond as in sport to teach their children to do things which, in a while after, they have severely beaten them for doing.

Whenever a child is corrected, it must be conquered; and this will be nor hard matter to do if it be not grown headstrong by too much indulgence. And when the will of a child is totally subdued and it is brought to revere and stand in awe of the parents, then a great many childish follies and inadvertences may be passed by. Some should be overlooked and taken no notice of, and others mildly reproved; but no willful transgression ought ever to be forgiven children without chastisement, less or more, as the nature and circumstances of the offense require.

I insist upon conquering the will of children betimes, because this is the only strong and rational foundation of a religious education; without which both precept and example will be ineffectual. But when this is thoroughly done, then a child is capable of being governed by the reason and piety of its parents, till its own understanding comes to maturity and the principles of religion have taken root in the mind.

I cannot yet dismiss this subject. As self-will is the root of all sin and misery, so whatever cherishes this in children insures their after-wretchedness and irreligion; whatever checks and mortifies it promotes their future happiness and piety. This is still more evident if we further consider that religion is nothing else than the doing the will of God and not our own: that the one grand impediment to our temporal and eternal happiness being this self-will, no indulgencies of it can be trivial, no denial unprofitable. Heaven or hell depends on this alone. So that the parent who studies to subdue it in his child works together with God in the renewing and saving a soul. The parent who indulges it does the devil's work, makes religion impracticable, salvation unattainable; and does all that in him lies to damn his child, soul and body forever.

John Wesley, 1783

"Train up a child in the way wherein he should go: And when he is old, he will not depart from it."
-Proverbs 22:6

What those spiritual diseases which every one that is born of a woman brings with him into the world?

Is not the first of the Atheism? After all that has been so plausibly written concerning "the innate idea of God;" after all that have been said of its being common to all men, in all ages and nations; it does not appear, that man has naturally any more idea of God that any of the beasts of the field; he has no knowledge of God at all; no fear of God at all; neither is God in all his thoughts. Whatever change may afterwards be wrought, (whether by the grace of God or by his own reflection, or by education) he is, by nature, a mere Atheist.

Another evil disease which every human soul brings into the world with him, is pride; a continual proneness to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. Every man can discern more or less of this disease in everyone -- but himself. And, indeed, if he could discern it in himself, it would subsist no longer; for he would then, in consequence, think of himself just as he ought to think.

The next disease natural to every human soul, born with every man, is love of the world. Every man is, by nature, a lover of the creature, instead of the Creator; a "lover of pleasure," in every kind, "more than a lover of God." He is a slave to foolish and hurtful desires, in one kind or another; either to the "desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes or the pride of life."

A deviation from truth is equally natural to all the children of men.

A wise parent, on the other hand, should begin to break their will the first moment it appears. In the whole art of Christian education there is nothing more important than this. The will of the parent is to a little child in the place of the will of God. Therefore studiously teach them to submit to this while they are children, that they may be ready to submit to his will when they are men. But in order to carry this point, you will need incredible firmness and resolution; for after you have once begun, you must never more give way. You must hold on still in an even course; you must never intermit your attention for one hour; otherwise you lose your labour.

A wise and kind parent will be equally cautious of feeding "the desire of the eyes" in her children. She will give them no pretty playthings, no glittering toys, shining buckles or buttons, fine or gay clothes; no needless ornaments of any kind; nothing that can attract the eye. Nor will she suffer any other person to give them what she will not give them herself.

John Witherspoon

I have said above, that you should "establish as soon as possible an entire and absolute authority." I would have it early, that it may be absolute that it may not be severe….

The authority ought also to be absolute, that it may not be severe. The more complete and uniform a parent's authority is, the offences will be more rare, punishment will be less needed, and the more gentle kind of correction will be abundantly sufficient…. Children, by foolish indulgence, become often so forward and petulant in their tempers, and they provoke their easy parents past endurance; so that they are obliged, if not to strike, at least to scold them, in a manner as little to their own credit, as their children's profit….

I would therefore recommend to every parent to begin the establishment of authority much more early than is commonly supposed to be possible: that is to say, from about the age of eight or nine months. …by setting about it with prudence, deliberation, and attention, it may be in a manner complete by the age of twelve or fourteen months. Do not imagine I mean to bid you use the rod at that age; on the contrary, I mean to prevent the use of it…. This is one of my favorite schemes; let me try to explain it and recommend it….

If then, you can accustom your children to perceive that your will must always prevail over theirs, when they are opposed, the thing is done, and they will submit to it without difficulty or regret…. For example, if a child shows a desire to have anything in his hand that he sees, or has any thing in his hand with which he is delighted, let the parent take it from him, and when he does so, let no consideration whatever make him restore it at that time. Then at a considerable interval, perhaps a whole day is little enough, especially at first, let the same thing be repeated. In the meantime, it must be carefully observed that no attempt should be made to contradict the child in the intervals. Not the least appearance of opposition, if possible, should be found between the will of the parent and that of the child, except in those chosen cases when the parents must always prevail.

1712 description of the curriculum of the Boston Latin Grammar School

In 1712 Nathaniel Williams, master of the Boston Latin Grammar School, sent to Nehemiah Hobart, a Senior Fellow at Harvard, the following letter, in which he describes the curriculum pursued by the students at the Boston Latin Grammar School as they prepared for admission to Harvard College:

1.2.3. The first three years are spent first in Learning by heart & then acc:[ording] to their capacities understanding the Accidence and Nomenclator, in construing & parsing acc:[ording) to the English rules of Syntax, Sententiae Pueriles, Cato & Corderius & Aesops Fables.2

4. The 4th year, or sooner if their capacities allow it, they are entered upon Erasmus to which they are allou'd no English, but are taught to translate it by the help of the Dictionary and Accidence, which English translation of theirs is written down fair by each of them, after the reciting of the lesson, and then brought to the Master for his observation and the correction both as to the Translatio & orthography: This when corrected is carefully reserved till fryday, and then render'd into Latin of the Author exactly instead of the old way of Repitition, and in the afternoon of that day it is (a part of it) varied for them as to mood tense case number &c and given them to translate into Latin, still keeping to the words of the Author. An example of which you have in the paper marked on the backside A [not available]. These continue to read AEsops Fables with ye English translation, the better to help them in the aforesaid translating. They are also now initiated in the Latin grammar, and begin to give the Latin rules in Propr: As in pres: [Propria: As in praesenti] & Syntax in their parsing; and at the latter end of the year enter upon Ovid de Tristibus (which is recited by heart on the usual time fryday afternoon) & upon translating English into Latin, out of mr Garretson's exercises.

5. The fifth year they are entered upon Tullies Epistles (Still continuing the use of Erasmus in the morning & Ovid de Trist[ibus]: afternoon) the Elegancies of which are remark'd and improv'd in the afternoon of the day they learn it, by translating an English which contains the phrase something altered, and besides recited by heart on the repetition day. Ov[id] Metam[orphoses): is learn'd by these at the latter end of the year, so also Prosodia Scanning & turning & making of verses, & 2 days in the week they continue to turn mr. Gar[retson's) English Ex[ercises) into Latin, w(hen) the afternoons exerc[ise): is ended, and turn a fable into a verse a distich in a day.

6. The sixth year they are entered upon Tullies Offices & Lucius] Flor(us): for the forenoon, continuing the use of Ovid's Metam[orphoses]: in the afternoon, & at the end of the Year they read Virgil: The Elegancies of Tull[ius'=Cicero] Off[ice]): are improved in the afternoon as is aforesaid of Tull[ius']: Epist[les]: & withal given the master in writing when the lesson is recited, & so are the phrases they can discover in Luc[ius] Fl[orus). All of which they have mett with in that week are comprehended in a dialogue on Fryday forenoon, and afternoon they turn a Fable in Lat[in) Verse. Every week these make a Latin Epistle, the last quarter of the Year, when also they begin to learn Greek, & Rhetorick.

7. The seventh year they read Tullie's Orations & Justin for the Latin and Greek Testam[en]t Isocrates Orat[ions]: Homer & Hesiod for the Greek in the forenoons & Vergil Horace Juvenal & Persius afternoons. As to their exercises after the afternoon lessons are ended they translate mundays & Tuesdays an Engl[ish] Dialogue containing a Praxis upon the Phrases out of Godwin's Roman Antiquities. Wensdays they compose of Praxis on the Elegancies & Pithy sentences in their lesson in Horace in Lat[in] verse. On repetition days, bec[ause] that work is easy, their time is improved in ye Forenoon in makeing Dialogues containing a Praxis upon a Particle out of Mr. Walker, in the afternoon in Turning a Psalm or something Divine into Latin verse. Every fortnight they compose a Theme, & now & then turn a Theme into a Declamation the last quarter of the year.

"Dissertation on the Sinfulness of Infants," Christian Disciple, August 2, 1814

I ask…if children were demons fit for hell, would God have given them that attractive sweetness, that mild beauty which renders them the most interesting objects on earth, and which compels us to shrink with horror from the thoughts of their everlasting run?

Jabez Burns, Mothers of the Wise and Good, 1846

Had Byron and Washington been exchanged in the cradles, "Washington might have been the licentious profligate, and Byron the exemplar of virtue and the benefactor of nations."

Luther Emmett Holt, The Care and Feeding of Children, 1894 [1904 edition]

When is crying useful?
In the newly born infant, the cry expands the lungs, and it is necessary that it should be repeated for a few minutes every day in order to keep them well expanded.

How much crying is normal for a very young baby?
From fifteen to thirty minutes a day is not too much.

What is the nature of this cry?
It is loud and strong. Infants get red in the face with it; in fact, it is a scream. This is necessary for health. It is the baby's exercise.

When is the cry abnormal?
When it is too long or too frequent. The abnormal cry is rarely strong, often it is a moaning or worrying cry, sometimes only a feeble whine.

What are the causes of such crying?
Pain, temper, hunger, illness, and habit.

Never gives a child what it cries for.

How may a child be trained to be regular in the action of its bowels?
By endeavouring to have them move at exactly the same time every day.

At what age may an infant be trained in this way?
Usually by the second month if training is begun early.

What is the best method of such training?
A small chamber, about the size of a pint bowl, is placed between the nurse's knees, and upon this the infant is held, its back being against the nurse's chest and its body fully supported. This should be done twice a day, after the morning and afternoon feedings, and always at the same hour. At first there may be necessary some local irritation, like that produced by tickling the anus or introducing just inside the retum a small cone of oiled paper or a piece of soap, as a suggestion of the purpose for which the baby is placed upon the chamber; but in a surprisingly short time the position is all that is required. With most infants, after a few weeks the bowels will move as soon as the infant is placed on the chamber.

What is masturbation?
It is the habit of rubbing the genital organs with the hands, with the clothing, against the bed, or rubbing the thighs together. Sometimes the child sits on the floor, closes its thighs tightly and rocks backwards and forwards. Many of these things are passed over lightly and regarded for months as simply a "queer" trick of the child….

How should such a child be treated?
Masturbation is the most injurious of all the bad habits and should be broken up just as early as possible. Children should especially be watched on going to sleep and on first waking. Punishment and mechanical restraints are of little avail except with infants, with older children they usually make matters worse. Some local cause of irritation is often present, which can be removed. Medical advice should at once be sought.

The question of child care is an old one, yet it was never more new than today, I think, in the light of the clearer understanding of it we owe to the advance of science and to a more cultured womanhood. It is also by far the most important Woman's Question of the day, in that it must inevitably lie to a great extent at the root of those other much-discussed problems of Physical degeneracy, Social Morality, and the National Welfare and Progress generally, for it is a well-known fact that the vast majority of children are born healthy, and that even delicate babies may often be reared into perfectly healthy adults; and in the hands of mothers lies the all-important task of the first education of the child, in the wider sense of the word.

William E. Blatz and Helen Bott, Parents and the Pre-School Child, 1929

The publication of Dr. Holt's Care and Feeding of Children marked an epoch. It conveyed to the mothers of the generation to which it was addressed the idea of a positive regimen of right physical habits as essential to the child's health and well-being. Previous to this mothers had brought their children up by rule of thumb, the child's desires being the gauge of the mother's behavior. Thus, if a baby cried he was fed, if he was fretful he was rocked or dandled, if he had colic he was walked the floor with, this being accepted as all in a day's work in bringing up a baby. All this Dr. Holt and his followers significantly changed. Instead of the baby's demands the routine laid down by the specialist prescribed the rule for the mother to follow. Regular times of feeding and hours of sleep, freedom from distraction, were all secured for the child with startling results in his health and happiness.
…Once the importance of regularity and consistency in physical care was grasped, the old, careless practices stood condemned. We may hope to see an analogous respect for the mental integrity of the child as a result of improved methods of mental training.

Murle Eldren and Helen Le Cron, For the Young Mother, 1921

The clock is the Baby's truest friend
As every Mother ought to know!
From early dawn to evening's end,
It points the way the day should go!
"Wake up!" it says at six o'clock,
"Wake up and have your morning meal!"
And later, "Time to bathe, (tick, tock!)"
And "Oh, how happy you will feel!"
Then, "Eat again," then, "Sleep," then "Take
Your daily airing," thus it goes-
So mother ought, for Baby's sake,
To take the clock's advice! It knows!

If a young mother were to ask me what I consider the keynote of successful baby training, I should say, without hesitation, regularity.

This means regularity in everything, eating, sleeping, bathing, bowel habits, and exercise. Each event in a baby's daily life should take place at exactly the same hour by the clock until the habit is established.
It is quite possible to train the baby to be an efficient little machine, and the more nearly perfect we make the running of this machine, the more wonderful will be the results achieved and the less trouble it will be for the mother.

The time to start this training is at birth. But one need not despair if the ideal is not accomplished immediately. It is best, though, to make out a schedule that you expect to carry out under all ordinary circumstances, and then follow it without deviation until the habits become automatic.

John B. Watson

Healthy babies do grow up under the most varied forms of feeding and bodily care. They can be stunted by poor food and ill health and then in a few days of proper regimen be made to pick up their weight and bodily strength.

But once a child's character has been spoiled by bad handling which can be done in a few days, who can say that the damage is ever repaired?

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select--doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and, yes, even beggarman and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.

There is a sensible way of treating children. Treat them as though they were young adults. Dress them, bathe them with care and circumspection. Let your behavior always be objective and kindly firm. Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit on your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say good night. Shake hands with them in the morning. Give them a pat on the head if they have made an extraordinarily good job of a difficult task. Try it out. In a week's time, you will find out how easy it is to be perfectly objective with your child and at the same time kindly. You will be utterly ashamed of the mawkish, sentimental way you have been handling it.

William E. Blatz and Helen Bott

If we were asked what was the keynote of a practical and commonsense parental attitude in respect to child training, we should sum the matter up in one word - discipline. By discipline we mean the reasonable regulation and supervision of the habits of a child throughout all stages of development and a consistent plan for having a child observe those rules that are laid down. Such simple rules as regular meal times, regular bed times, training in elimination, eating what is placed before him, wearing the clothes that are provided, observing certain proprieties of conduct - these…would probably suffice for the average home.

Douglas A. Thom, Everyday Problems of the Everyday Child, 1927

There is nothing more pathetic than the child who has the misfortune to inherit parents who refuse to allow him to grow up; who deny to him opportunities to development a personality from the mental characteristics with which he was originally endowed; who entertain certain preconceived ideas as to just what he should do and what he should think, and who resent any deviation that nature may bring about in his development. How many parents dominate the thoughts and actions of their children because they glory in the fact that "My child just can't get along without me!" During the pre-school years, they attempt to keep their children in that infantile state where they may feed them, lie down with them at nap time, respond to their midnight calls, and wait upon them to the point where the child is simply vegetating. A little later they march their children back and forth from school, protect and sympathize with them in their conflicts with the teacher, fight their battles with other children, and receive them with open arms when they meet fear and failure in the outside world.
…Over-solicitousness on the part of parents…often produces the selfish, self-cntered, clinging vine type of child.

Frederic Bartlett, Infants and Children, 1932
Masturbation was the result of anxiety rather than impending insanity.

Don't let what I am going to say worry you. I know that you have been handling your sex organs frequently. This is called masturbation…. The trouble is that if you handle yourself too frequently, you are apt to become nervous. Also you oftentimes are unhappy about it. You wish you had not done it after you have done it. I want you to understand that there is nothing bad in doing it. In fact, it is more natural for a growing boy to have masturbated than it is for him not to have masturbated.

The way to stop doing it is, when you feel that you want to handle yourself, to make yourself do something else, such as going outdoors or getting a toy to play with. You may not be able to do this every time at the start but keep trying.

Children's Bureau, Infant Care, 1942

When the baby cries it is a signal that something needs to be done. He may need to be turned over, to have his diaper changed, to be given a drink of water, or to have some companionship.
Frequently the small amount of attention that goes with satisfying his wants will give him all the companionship he needs, and he will become peaceful. Sometimes, however, a baby will continue to cry. It is true that short periods of crying will not harm a young baby and that crying is good exercise if it does not last too long. If the crying lasts for more than 15 minutes, however, after the baby has apparently been made comfortable, he probably needs further attention….
It should be remember that if a baby cries for no apparent reason he may be sick.

A baby's ability to cry is nature's way of seeing that his needs are taken care of. It is up to us adults to keep in step with nature and heed his cry. A baby does not cry for nothing; he cries because he is uncomfortable. It is up to us to find out why and fix it.

You will never spoil a baby by attending to his needs. A baby needs food and warmth; but he also needs love and all the little baby things that go with his mother's demonstration of her love. A baby who gets plenty of this kind of attention will not cry for more. It is the baby who never has enough who is always crying for me. He is the spoiled baby.

Louise Cripps Glemser, Your First Baby, 1943

There is no such thing as a bad baby. No baby-certainly no baby under two-needs punishment.
Babies may be annoying and troublesome, true enough, but they are not bad. Badness is willful wrongdoing. Babies are not born with a sense of right and wrong.

Benjamin Spock, Commonsense Baby and Child Care, 1946

Don't be afraid to trust your own common sense. Bringing up a child won't be a complicated job if you take it easy, trust your own instincts, and follow the directions your doctor gives you. We know for a fact that the natural loving care that kindly parents give their children is a hundred times more valuable than their knowing how to pin a diaper on just right or how to make up a formula expertly….

It may surprise you to hear that the more people have studied different methods of bringing up children, the more they have come to the conclusion that what good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their children is usually best, after all.

Some doctors and parents have been trying the experiment lately of going back to nature-never waking the baby, but feeding when whenever he seems hungry….

Your baby is born to be a reasonable, friendly human being. If you treat him nicely, he won't take advantage of you.

Edith Buxbaum, Your Child Makes Sense, 1949

…The content of a child's first years is different from what the adult world had imagined it to be: that childhood is not a period of undisturbed growth and development, lived in an atmosphere of happy, care-free unconcern. On the contrary: from birth onwards, children feel the pressure of urgent body needs and powerful instinctive urges (such as hunger, sex, aggression) which clamor for satisfaction. Soon afterwards, the child encounters the demand for restraint, and the prohibitions on unlimited wish-fulfillment, which comes from parents whose task it is to turn their children from unrestrained, greedy, and cruel little savages into well-behaved, socially adapted, civilized

John Bowlby, Child Care and the Growth of Love, 1953

The absolute need of infants and toddlers for the continuous care of their mothers will be borne in on all who read this book.

Barry Brazelton, Infants and Mothers

Too much is written for the new mother. Most of the literature is aimed at giving her advice. Very little of it offers her support for her own individual reactions and intuitions. Baby books tell her how to become the perfect mother. Eminent authorities intellectualize the process of becoming a mother… She finds that many of her instinctual reactions are frowned upon by one authority or another. The literature that was designed to support her becomes an undermining influence.