Running Barefoot

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 2, 1903

ONE of the delights of childhood is that of running barefoot. There seems to be an instinct which impels a child to throw off the foot-covering and walk about in all the delightful freedom of unshod feet.

Mothers who indulge their children in this respect are wise. Many of our instincts may safely and even beneficially be yielded to in moderation; and this is one of them. One of our “weak spots” is the foot, and we are, perhaps, oftener predisposed to colds and other maladies by damp and chilled feet than by anything else. Whatever tends to toughen the feet, therefore makes the individual so much the less liable to disease.

Mothers are often perplexed as to how far they may safely indulge their children in this longing for going barefoot. They can not feel that it is safe to let a boy or girl run barefooted on wet grass, play with bare feet in damp sand, or continue to go without shoes and stockings when a cold and wet day breaks a hot spell. It might not be prudent to let a child begin in this way in the early spring, after having been in shoes and stockings, and perhaps galoshes, all the winter. But before the summer is over, all such anxiety may be put aside.

Of course there are certain precautions that should always be taken; for the human foot can not safely be neglected, like the well-protected paws of a dog or cat. The child should not be allowed to run about in the neighborhood of barns, blacksmiths' and carpenters' shops, and other places where there are likely to be rusty nails, splinters of wood, broken crockery, and the like; nor should he go far afield over rough ground where he would probably get stone bruises.

When first beginning his barefoot holiday, the boy should put on thin socks and light, easy shoes or slippers at dusk, and should go foot-clad on really cold days. After tramping in mud and wet, his feet should be bathed in cold water, dried and “socked” as soon as he comes into the house.

A summer of this freedom from shoes, with its toughening of the feet and the system in general, will insure for the child a winter practically free from the “snuffles”—but he will need shoes of a larger size in the autumn.—The Present Truth.