Monday, January 15, 2018

Do NOT Overfeed Children!

How many graves are filled, and funeral vaults crowded with little carcases which have been brought to untimely death by the foolish fondness of a parent, or a nurse, giving the young creature leave to eat everything they desire! Or if they happen by strength of constitution to survive this pestilence, how often do they grow up young gluttons, and place their happiness in the satisfaction of taste!  They are deaf to all the rules of virtue and abstinence all their lives, because they were never taught to deny themselves when they were young.  O it is a mean and shameful thing to be a slave to our taste, and to let this brutal appetite subdue reason, and govern the man! But if appetites must be gratified in the child, they will grow strong in the years of youth, and a thousand to one but they overpower the man also.

Isaac Watts, The Improvement of the Mind: A Supplement to Logic, pg.316

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