Barefoot Babies

"I chanced to be present," vemarked a trained nurse to a group of profesBioMd frlends, according to the Cleveland Leader, "when a llttle girl 3 years oL age, just returned from tho west, was being put to fc6d. It -was tho last day of August and I noted that she was i suffocating ln a heavy high-necked, long-sleeved flannel shirt and underilrawers, long, thlck stockings and a flannel sldrt, besides tho full cotton outflt; and this would, I know, be generally accepted as quite the proper and ratlonal way to prepare a llttle child for a long joúrney. To me lt seemed little less than cruelty. Cn the other hand, I am watching with grnt Interost a little child of 9 montas oíd who has never had a shoe or stocking on or had ita little feet covered in any way during the day. Whenever the weather is chilly the nurse glves them an oooaslonal brisk rubbing, but argües that since lts feet have never been covered they are no more sensitivo than the hands, and lt Ís tnre that the little one has never had a cold. During the hot weather, too, it was dressed ln comparativo comfort, which, translated, means as llttle clotklag as posslble. One of the leadlng specialists in chlldren's diseases in a most dlstinguished man, by the way, never lows his children to wear shoes and stockings except when out of doora in midwinter untfl are 5 or 6 years old. All through the spring and early summer they niay be seen in park and public garden, waHcing about with their nurse, exquisitely frocked, but barefoot. Later come the long country rainbles and even in the winter they never wear shoes in the house. The result of this experiment in hls own famlly has proved more than sattsfactory to the famous physician and the general ruggedness and vigor of th children is his most powerful argument when using the whole weight ef iiis influence to prevail upon other parents to go and do likewise. "It is to be hoped that saner notions ín regard to dressing children in hot weather may, in due time, percolat all classes of society and that those wno would hesitate before the bareioot idea may at least go so far as to unjurden their children of that heavy weight of clothing whlch is more productive of colds and weakness than all other causes combined."