The little white nerve-threads lie smoothly side by side, making small white cords. Each kind of message goes on its own thread, so that the messages need never get mixed or confused.
These nerves are very delicate little messengers. They do all the feeling for the whole body, and by means of them we have many pains and many pleasures.
If there was no nerve in your tooth it could not ache. But if there were no nerves in your mouth and tongue, you could not taste your food.
If there were no nerves in your hands, you might cut them and feel no pain. But you could not feel your mother's soft, warm hand, as she laid it on yours.
One of your first duties is the care of yourselves.
Children may say: "My father and mother take care of me." But even while you are young, there are some ways in which no one can take care of you but yourselves. The older you grow, the more this care will belong to you, and to no one else.
Think of the work all the parts of the body do for us, and how they help us to be well and happy. Certainly the least we can do is to take care of them and keep them in good order.
CARE OF THE BRAIN AND NERVES.
As one part of the brain has to take care of all the rest of the body, and keep every organ at work, of course it can never go to sleep itself. If it did, the heart would stop pumping, the lungs would leave off breathing, all other work would stop, and the body would be dead.
But there is another part of the brain which does the thinking, and this part needs rest.