Firstborn Children Strongest

1901

It would seem that firstborn children excel later born children in height and weight. This may be due to the greater vigor of the mother at the birth of the first child.

In England it was found that growth degenerates as we go lower in the social scale, there being a difference of even five inches in height between the best and worst fed classes in the community.

An investigation of 10,000 children in Switzerland showed that children born in summer are taller for their age than those born in winter. As a majority of children in the public schools are poor, in winter their parents are forced to economize more on account of expense of heating. Their rooms are also liable to be small and poorly ventilated, while in summer they are out in the fresh air. Food is also cheaper and more varied. The influence of unhealthy conditions on a very young child would be much greater than when it is older and better able to resist them. — Everybody's Magazine.

Baseball Season Opens

1900

The opening of the baseball season" is a phrase which implies that the season opens everywhere at once. In reality, the season opens in our big country very much as the honey season for the bees, or the season of birds' singing, or the strawberry season, opens — that is to say, not long after New Year's day in Florida, and from that date on to a period several months later in northern Maine. Now that American soldiers have introduced the American game in Havana, San Juan, Manila and Iloilo, baseball has all seasons for its own.

Although general terms upon anything dependent on climate do not fit a country which extends from the arctic zone to the tropics, the statement may be regarded as approximately accurate that "the baseball season has opened." Baseball is an excellent and manly game, not especially dangerous, interesting, strategic, and well-adapted to the development of the body and the sharpening of the wits.

No game meets, with less harm, the natural demand for an out-of-door sport to act as a means of healthy athletic competition between schools and communities. But its very popularity and adaptability have led to grave abuses. If baseball had not been so interesting, so universal, it would not have gained the discredit which has come from a system of professionalism, a traffic in players, and a frequent display of rowdyism in the field.

Yet with all the discredit, which, after all, affects but a small proportion of the baseball-playing, the game is losing none of its popularity or its real value as an athletic sport, and the reopening of the baseball season is still a matter for rejoicing. — Youth's Companion.

Lessons of Winter

1874

There is no season of the year so well calculated to bind us together in the ties of a common brotherhood as is winter. Nature claims and receives our sympathy in all her varied aspects.

In the spring we rejoice in her renewed activity, and greet with delight her balmy air and budding beauty. As the summer approaches, we disperse to behold her in new phases and to enjoy her cool breezes from mountain and sea. In the fall we witness with tender sadness the departure of the gorgeous foliage and rich bloom, and still linger lovingly among her shadows. But when nature puts on her winter's dress, she bears a different message to us all.

With the bleak wind and stinging frost she sends us from her presence for a time, and bids us draw closer to one another for warmth and comfort. She brings more forcibly to the mind the delights of home and friends, and at the same time speaks impressively of the pain and sorrow, poverty and woe that call for sympathy and help.

Each season has its appropriate lesson, and that of winter is surely intended to strengthen within us the spirit of humanity that shall blossom into brotherly love and kindness. As the dusk of twilight calls the children away from outdoor play to assemble in the home, and brighten the family with their cheerful presence, so winter calls the human family from their summer rambles into a more intimate communion and sympathy with each other.

It is a pleasant task to learn one part of winter's teachings, that which relates to social and domestic union. The festivities of Thanksgiving and Christmas, the long winter evenings, the cheerful fireside, the lectures, concerts and social gatherings, the hilarity of the young, and the cheerful sympathy of the old all draw families and friends together in closer bonds.

All honor to the merry pastimes, the genial society, the friendly harmony which winter inaugurates. Let parents and children devote themselves more assiduously to each other, let brothers and sisters strengthen fraternal love by kindly offices and close companionship, let acquaintances blossom into friends, and friendly intercourse ripen affection, and, above all, let the sympathy thus developed serve to inspire each with higher purposes and nobler aims, and one part of winter's mission, will have been accomplished.

Summer's Slipping (poetry)

1922

Poems You Will Enjoy
By Berton Braley

SUMMER'S SLIPPING
The summer's almost gone again,
And fall is coming on again,
When we must really get upon the job;
When we must quit our pleasuring,
And start once more to treasuring
The work that keeps the busy
world athrob.

The small boy thinks unpleasantly
Of school days coming presently;
He'd like to have vacation all the year.
Fall styles are in the stores again,
We'll soon read football scores again,
And apples on the menu will appear.

Straw hats will soon be laid away,
And Palm Beach suits will fade away,
And oysters will again be fit to eat.
Dramatic stars will flash again,
And college boys grow brash again,
And we won't be complaining of the heat.

Thus, after summer's lazy days,
We'll have the golden, hazy-days
When we'll have lots of pep on which to call,
As back to work we turn again,
To earn the coal to burn again,
When winter comes along right after fall!

Spring Specimens (poetry)

1878

Spring Specimens

'Tis now the gentle hopper-grass
Arises from his winter snooze
And whets his bill upon his leg
Preparatory to its use.

'Tis now the festive yellow jacket
And hornet ope their eyes for aye,
And strive to make a pretty fuss
By stinging cows upon the thigh.

The Paragraphers now awake
And rummage over musty files,
Wherewith to gain their daily bread,
And also gain the public's smiles.

'Tis now the festive door-bell rings
And duns walk through the open door,
And still present the same old bills
As long as in the days of yore.

—National Union.