The Baby is Ubiquitous

To return to the nursery.  It would be a great thing if the nurse could be impressed with the notion that the baby is ubiquitous, and that he not only sees and knows everything, but will keep, for all his life, the mark of all he sees:–

“If there’s a hole in a’ your coats,
I pray ye, tent it;
A chiel’s amang ye takin’ notes,
And, faith, he’ll prent it”[1] :--

‘prent it’ on his own active brain, as a type for his future habits.  Such a notion on the nurse’s part might do something to secure cleanliness that goes beyond that of clean aprons.  One or two little bits of tidiness that nurses affect are not to commended on the score of cleanliness:– the making up of the nursery beds early in the morning, and the folding up of the children’s garments when they take them off at night.  It is well to stretch a line across the day nursery at night, and hang the little garments out for an airing, to get rid of the insensible perspiration with which they have been laden during the day.  For the same reason, the beds and bedclothes should be turned down to air for a couple of hours before they are made up.