How should clothes be washed?
How should they be dried?
CHAPTER V.
OUR OWN SELVES.
A human being is very wonderful. Even the smallest baby is entirely separate from all the rest of the world. He is a part of the great whole, but he has his own life and separate being, just as much as the greatest man in the world. If everybody in the world did just what was right excepting one man, both that man and the rest of the world would suffer because of his doing wrong. If all the rest of the world were healthy and clean and he was not, the cleanliness and health of all the others would not save him from being dirty and unhealthy. Each one of us must do all that he can to help the rest of the world to be good and healthy and clean. Now, the first and greatest thing that any one of us can do toward this, is to do right and be healthy and clean himself.
The human being is not only very wonderful, but he lives in a wonderful body. This body can do much and endure much. It is very perfectly adapted to its use. If man had not his reason to help him; if he did not walk upright when all other creatures crawl or go on all fours; if he did not differ from the lower animals in any other way than by having a thumb on each hand, he would still be superior to them. All the other large creatures are stronger than man, but his skillful hands, with their thumbs, make him master of them. These help him to grasp and to hold, to make things for his own use. He makes clothing to wear, houses to shelter himself, and weapons with which to defend himself.
Hundreds of years ago there lived a great doctor, named Galen. He wrote one of the first books ever written about the human body, and he has left it on record that he was obliged to believe that God lives; for none but divine power could have made so wonderful a thing as the joint that turns the human hand at the wrist. Yet this joint is only one of the many wonderful things in the body.
Now, to each of us is intrusted one of these bodies to take care of, that it may do our work for us. Our work is not just to live for ourselves, but to do something useful in the world; to help it all to be better because we are here. So you see how very much worth while it is that we should keep these useful bodies of ours as well and strong as we can.
Besides the outer garments in which we clothe it, the body has a garment of its own. This garment is never laid aside; and though it is in constant use, it never wears out. We call it the skin. The skin is meant to protect the body. Lying close under it are many nerve ends, delicate blood vessels, oil glands, sweat glands, and other tiny organs that are too small to be seen without a microscope, but which are needed to keep the body in good order. In the pictures which are shown on this page, you will see how these tiny organs look when they are many times magnified.
