SLEEP

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 2, 1868

Many children, instead of being plump and fresh as a peach, are as withered and wrinkled as last year's apples, because they do not sleep enough. Some physicians think that the bones grow only during sleep. This I cannot say certainly; but I do know that those little folks who sit up late nights are usually nervous, weak, small and sickly. The reason why you need more sleep than your parents is because you have to grow, and they do not. They can use up the food they eat in thinking, talking and working, while you should save some of yours for growing. You ought to sleep a great deal; if you do not, you will in activity consume all you eat, and have none, or not enough, to grow with. Very few smart children excel, or even equal, other people when they grow up. Why is this? Because their heads, if not their bodies, are kept too busy; so they cannot sleep, rest, and grow strong in body and brain. Now, when your mother says, Susie or Mary, or whatever your name may be, it is time to go to bed, do not worry her by begging to sit up “just a little longer;” but hurry off to your chamber, remembering that you have a great deal of sleeping and growing to do, to make you healthy, happy, and useful.