This tendency to anger, vexation, and rage needs great care.
Boerhaave thinks that most of the diseases of children are of the
nature of convulsions, because the head being larger in proportion
and the nervous system more extensive than in adults, they are
more liable to nervous irritation. Take the greatest care to remove
from them any servants who tease, annoy, or vex them. They are a
hundredfold more dangerous and more fatal than fresh air and changing
seasons. When children only experience resistance in things and never
in the will of man, they do not become rebellious or passionate,
and their health is better. This is one reason why the children of
the poor, who are freer and more independent, are generally less
frail and weakly, more vigorous than those who are supposed to be
better brought up by being constantly thwarted; but you must always
remember that it is one thing to refrain from thwarting them, but
quite another to obey them. The child's first tears are prayers,
beware lest they become commands; he begins by asking for aid, he
ends by demanding service. Thus from his own weakness, the source
of his first consciousness of dependence, springs the later idea of
rule and tyranny; but as this idea is aroused rather by his needs
than by our services, we begin to see moral results whose causes
are not in nature; thus we see how important it is, even at the
earliest age, to discern the secret meaning of the gesture or cry.

When the child tries to seize something without speaking, he
thinks he can reach the object, for he does not rightly judge its
distance; when he cries and stretches out his hands he no longer
misjudges the distance, he bids the object approach, or orders you
to bring it to him. In the first case bring it to him slowly; in
the second do not even seem to hear his cries. The more he cries