Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE CHILDREN'S MEALS There is no part of household economy so generally neglected as the children's meals, particularly from the time when liquid diet is supplanted by solid food up to the beginning of school days. When a seedling is first set in the earth, it is carefully shielded from the hot rays of the sun and watered regularly till the roots are well grounded. Then the shield is removed and gradually the plant grows, until, with proper care, it reaches perfection. The way of children is the same; when the little one is weaned and taught to eat solid food — up to maturity — his diet needs supervision ; but the first six years, great formative period of health, are the most critical of all, for just as the plant wilts in the hot sun and shrivels from lack of water, so may the little child fade if the correct diet is not provided. As children grow irregularly they demand, at different periods, various kinds of food for building purposes — yet at all times enough of each element must be provided to insure the even growth of all parts of the body. Up to the age of eighteen months, the child has eaten little- except milk, bits of stale bread, some hard crackers, a morsel of rice, a little beef juice, or, occasionally, part of an egg and some orange juice. He has not been particularly active and, therefore, has demanded little starch, the milk-sugar, with starch from bread, sufficing to meet his need, as he is occupied with the business of growing. He now commences to be more active, both bodily and mentally, and needs more starch, or activity- making food, to replace the energy he so freely gives off. This is best supplied in the form of cereal or bread. At the same time the pliable little bones are withstanding great weight in proportion to their strength and ne...