How to dress a child in 1904

Quick Quotes 19.  The following quote is taken from On the Healthy Home Life of School Children, by Professor Dr. Leo Burgerstein, published in English in 1904 and translated from the original German text by R.T. Williamson.

The clothing should be suitable to the season of the year, and should not impede the action of the respiratory, circulatory, and digestive organs.  Hence tight collars, tight girdles or belts, garters generally, tight boots with small soles and high heels, tight bodices (corsets with steel or whalebone buckles), and heavy necklaces, should not be allowed. Stocking suspenders are preferable to garters.

In wet weather, when goloshes are not used, the boots should be changed at home, in order to keep the feet dry and warm. Goloshes should not be worn in the schoolroom.

During all vigorous bodily exercises woollen underclothing is preferable to linen.

A bath for purposes of cleanliness should be taken at least every fourteen days. In places where there are cheap public baths the scholar who wishes to use them should do so at a time when digestion is well advanced, and at an hour when the baths are least frequented. In the colder months the scholar should be warmly clothed, and should go home at once after the bath.

In warm weather it is desirable that the scholar should have the opportunity of taking cold baths or of bathing in places where there is no danger.  Cold sponging is suitable, at all seasons of the year, for hardening the body. Scholars should be recommended to learn swimming. Cold baths should be forbidden, however, in certain affections — for example, in disease of the heart, of the lungs, or of the ears. It is therefore advisable that a medical man should be consulted with reference to the use of such baths.

The bed linen should be changed at least every fourteen days, and the underclothing at least twice a week.

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“Quick Quotes” are some bonus content for the blog. Each time I find an interesting or amusing little quote from and old (verging on forgotten) book, that does not really need any further explanation or background information, it will appear on Windows into History under this heading. You can keep updated each time I post a new entry by clicking on the follow button on the right of the screen. I welcome any comments or suggestions, and will consider guest posts.