That we may train the more systematically our little unborn babes, it will be well for us to study the five stages of prenatal culture. In giving these stages, I would not have you understand that at no other time except at these periods are the given characteristics of mind and body cultured and strengthened; but that in these special periods they receive their strongest impetus and determination. Throughout the entire ten lunar months should we foster and culture all the sweet graces, but especially in these times.
In the first two of the ten lunar months of pregnancy the physical nature of the little one is shaped. During this time the mother should pay especial attention to physical exercises which will add to her strength and insure vigorous health through the remaining months. In other words, she should fix her habits of exercise in this period and adhere to them as closely as possible throughout the entire ten months. As far as may be, put pleasure and diversion into your exercise.
Look at beautiful pictures, study perfect pieces of statuary, forbid as far as possible the contemplation of unsightly and imperfect models. Make your reading tend toward the same end and you will be rewarded with beautiful, vigorous children. If it be true, as we know it is, that the dog-fancier can produce you a dog at will, that will be marked as you order, why may not this same law be demonstrated in the human family? Remember the story of Jacob’s sheep and the “pilled rods” for illustration in the animal kingdom.
During the third and fourth months the vital instincts are determined. Then the domestic and social affections and loves, love of home and family, are implanted. How very much the future mother may do by making the home at this time the fairest place on earth; and becoming so in love with it herself, that her child may forever in its after life repeat this affection.
“In the fifth and sixth months the observing, or perceptive powers are cultured and engrafted. Individuality, form, weight, color, calculation, time, tune, language and the five external senses.”
Surely, enough variety in study for this period. If you are not observing, learn to be, by persistent exercise; assert your individuality; study independence in thought and action; be self-reliant, self-contained. Study form and outline until you can take them in at a glance. If you have never cultivated an artistic taste do so at this time. If you have not the time, talent or money to learn to execute pictures yourself, you can at least study the beautiful things done by others, and can implant the love for these things, which may be highly developed in your child. Many an ideal to which you have never been able to give expression will thus be wrought out in the most glowing imagery hereafter by your children. The things you have longed to be will find expression in their lives.
Many a poet, I believe, has been born of parents whose lives were poems, but who were never able to express a couplet in rhyme or meter. “Susanna Wesley, with the song of praise and the gospel of peace in her heart, bore and gave to the world two sons, whose spiritual achievement in song and sermon set in motion a wave of blessing that has carried peace to thousands of souls the world over, and will carry to the end of time. Herself no singer or preacher, but living the song and the sermon that found expression in her sons.”
Truly nowhere does seed-sowing bring a hundredfold more surely, than that implanted in the prenatal life of our babies.
“In the fourth stage we develop the constructive and beautifying powers; as constructiveness, ideality, sublimity, mirthfulness, imitation, suavity, etc.” How much, by giving during this period, these faculties in your own mind full play, and judicious cultivation, can you add of blessing and happy helpfulness to the little life growing to maturity under your heart.
“The fifth and last stage of two months we may call the humanitarian and beneficent. In this period, the religious or worshipful aspirations, spiritual or upward looking powers, as hope, veneration, benevolence, charity, etc., etc., receive their impetus.”