The Childs Day | Page 9

as well as outside.

GOING TO SCHOOL
I. GETTING READY
As soon as you have finished breakfast, and brushed your teeth and
gone to the toilet, you are ready to run out of doors to play, if you have

plenty of time, or, if not, to start for school.
Doesn't it seem a nuisance, in winter time, to have to put on a coat and
overshoes and a cap or a hood, and sometimes leggings and mittens,
too? But your mothers know what is best for you; and when you are
young and growing fast, you have so much more surface in proportion
to your weight than when you are grown up, that you lose heat from the
blood in your skin very fast; and unless you are warmly dressed, you
become chilled.
When you are chilled, you are using up, in merely trying to keep
yourself warm, some of the energy that ought to be used for growing
and for working. It has been found out by careful tests that children
who are not warmly dressed, and particularly whose arms and legs are
not warmly covered, do not grow so fast as they ought to, and more
easily catch colds and other infections. So take time to put on your cap
and your coat, if the weather is cold; and, if it is snowy, to button on
leggings over your stockings; and then you can play as hard as you like,
and run through the snow, and keep warm and rosy and comfortable.
Wool is one of the best stuffs for coats and dresses and stockings and
gloves and caps, not only because it is warm, but also because it is
lighter in weight than anything else you could wear that would be
equally warm, and because it is porous; that is, it will let the air pass
through it, and the perspiration from the body escape through it.
Don't wear any clothes so tight that you cannot run and jump and play
and fling your arms and legs about freely, or so fine and stylish that
you are afraid of getting them soiled by romping and tumbling.
It is best to wear fairly heavy, comfortable shoes with good thick soles;
then you will not have to wear rubbers, except when it is actually
pouring rain, or when there is melting snow or slush upon the ground.
Felt, or buckskin, or heavy cloth makes very good "uppers" for
children's shoes; but only leather makes good soles.
It is best not to wear rubbers too much, because the same
waterproofness, which keeps the rain and the snow out, keeps the

perspiration of your feet in, and is likely to make them damp. When
they are damp, they are as easily chilled as if they had been wet through
with rain or puddle water. Always take off your rubbers in the house or
in school, because they are holding in not only the water of perspiration,
but the poisons as well; and these will poison your entire blood, so that
you soon have a headache and feel generally uncomfortable.
II. AN EARLY ROMP
The minute you are outside the door, the fresh morning air strikes your
face, and you draw four or five big breaths, as if you would like to fill
yourself as full as you could hold. If you have had a good night's sleep
and a good breakfast, the very feel of the outdoor air will make you
want to run and jump and shout and throw your arms about. This
warms you up finely and gives you a good color; but if you keep it up
long, you will notice that two things are happening: one, that you are
breathing faster than you were before; the other, that your heart is
beating harder and faster, so that you can almost feel it throbbing
without putting your hand on your chest.
If you run too hard, or too far, you begin to be out of breath, and your
heart thumps so hard that it almost hurts. What is your heart doing? It is
pumping; it is trying to pump the blood fast out to your muscles to give
them the strength to run with.
[Illustration: AN EARLY RUN IS A GOOD PREPARATION FOR
THE DAY'S WORK]
Of course you have seen a pump? Perhaps some of you have to pump
water every day at home. You take the handle in your hands, lift it up,
then press it down, and out pours the water through the spout; and, as
you keep pumping, the water spurts out every time you press the handle
down. It is hard work, and your arms are soon tired; but, as you cannot
drink the water while it is down in the well, you must