Locke: Warmth

Some Thoughts Concerning Education - by John Locke, 1693

§ 5 Warmth. The first thing to be taken care of, is, that children be not too warmly clad or covered, winter or summer. The face when we are born, is no less tender than any other part of the body. 'Tis use alone hardens it, and makes it more able to endure the cold. And therefore the Scythian philosopher gave a very significant answer to the Athenian, who wondered how he could go naked in frost and snow. "How," said the Scythian, "can you endure your face exposed to the sharp winter air?" "My face is used to it," said the Athenian. "Think me all face," replied the Scythian. Our bodies will endure any thing, that from the beginning they are accustomed to.

An eminent instance of this, though in the contrary excels of heat, being to our present purpose, to shew what use can do, I shall set down in the author's words, as I meet with it in a late ingenious voyage [Nouveau Voyage du Levant]. "The heats," says he, "are more violent in Malta, than in any part of Europe: they exceed those of Rome itself, and are perfectly stifling; and so much the more, because there are seldom any cooling breezes here. This makes the common people as black as Gypsies: but yet the peasants defy the sun; they work on in the hottest part of the day, without intermission, or sheltering themselves from his scorching rays. This has convinced me, that nature can bring itself to many things which seem impossible, provided we accustom ourselves from our infancy. The Malteses do so, who harden the bodies of their children, and reconcile them to the heat, by making them go stark naked, without shirt, drawers, or any thing on their head, from their cradles, till they age ten years old."

Give me leave therefore to advise you, not to fence too carefully against the cold of this our climate. There are those in England, who wear the same clothes winter and summer, and that without any inconvenience, or more sense of cold than others find. But if the mother will needs have an allowance for frost and snow, gor fear of harm, and the father for fear of censure, be sure let not his winter-clothing be too warm: and amongst other things, remember, that when Nature has so well covered his head with hair, and strengthened it with a year or two's age, that he can run about by day without a cape, it is best that by night a child should also ly without one; there being nothing that more exposes to head-aches, colds, catarrhs, coughs, and several other diseases, than keeping the head warm.

§ 6 I have said He here, because the principal aim of my discourse is, how a young gentleman should be brought up from his infancy, which in all things will not so perfectly suit the education of daughters; though, where the difference of sex requires different treatment, 'twill be no hard matter to distinguish.