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Title: The Young House-Keeper; or Thoughts on Foods and Cookery.
Author: Alcott, William Andrus
Publisher: Boston; Waite, Peirce & Company

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> THE YOUNG HOUSE-KEEPER.

> CHAPTER I.

> DIGNITY OF THE HOUSE-KEEPER.

Silent influence of the house-keeper. Her character as a teacher and educator. Should the mother be the house-keeper? Vulgar notions. Anecdote. Dignity of the house-keeper asserted. She is, in some respects, a legislator--a counsellor--a minister--a missionary--a reformer--a physician.

IT often happens that the most important results in the natural world are brought about by causes which operate silently, if not imperceptibly. Thus the growth of vegetation, though effected in a greater or less degree by the strong wind, the violent rain, and the heat and glare of the noonday sun, is yet still more effectually promoted by the mild action of the gentler breezes, the softly descending dew, and the less intense heat. More than this, even, is true. It is not so much by means of the dew, properly so called, or even the


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gentler breezes, or the more direct rays of the great source of light and heat, that the earth is rendered fruitful, and fitted to be the abode of man and beast, as by the motion of an atmosphere, holding constantly in solution a large quantity of water, in the form of vapor, which the earth seems to imbibe, and in a most wonderful manner work up into the living forms of the animal and vegetable kingdom. These living forms, too, often seem weakened and debilitated rather than invigorated by the sun's more direct rays, during a few short hours of each twenty-four; while the silent working, night and day,in sunshine and in shade, of that light and heat of which the sun is supposed to be the ultimate source, is indispensable--and is the means, along with the effects of air and moisture, of germination, growth and progress. So in relation to animal bodies, it is not that profuse perspiration which we sometimes witness or experience, that cleanses the system and promotes human health in the highest degree; but that gentler perspiration which is scarcely perceptible to the senses, but which, so long as we are in tolerable health, whether we are employed or unemployed, and whether we wake or sleep, is steadily going on.

It is somewhat thus, in the formation of human character. Too much comparative importance has ever been attached to our more direct, not to say


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noisy efforts to promote its growth. Not that these are without their influence in the moral world, any more than the violent rain and the strong breeze are without influence in the physical; but an undue importance has ever been attached to their operation and efficacy. Admit even that the pulpit, the bar, the legislative hall, the college, the school and the press, have done all which has been supposed. Admit their power, under an Almighty Spirit to regenerate, correct, reform, re-create, develope, regulate and direct in every part of the intellectual and moral world, were as great as their most sanguine adherents have supposed. Would it not be still true, that man is most developed, and formed, and educated, by causes which, from their silent operation, seem to be almost inoperative? Are not those the most effective educators and teachers of man, after all, whose lessons teach him as though they taught not?

If these views are correct--and that they are so will not, it is presumed, be questioned--does it not behoove us to pay more attention to these silent, but therefore certain sources and springs of human character? Have we nothing to do in the way of elevating and purifying, if I may so express it, the physical, the intellectual, the social, the moral atmosphere in which a child lives, and moves, and breathes, and grows, for years before those more


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direct influences to which I have just alluded can be applied? Have the temperature and the purity of the air which a child inhales, fifty thousand times in twenty-four hours, nothing to do in the formation of his physical character--nothing to do with the growth, health and strength of a body nourished by the blood which this unceasing ventilating process is intended to regenerate and purify? Have the light or the darkness, the noise or the quiet, the sweet tones or the discordant sounds, the smiles or the frowns to which the young inhabitant of our world is subjected, nothing to do with the formation and growth of character? Have the quantity, quality and condition of the food and the drink which are introduced to a child's stomach, and which, when assimilated, course their way through every part of the living machine twenty-five or thirty thousand times every twenty-four hours, nothing to do with character? Have the conversation and conduct of early associates nothing to do with forming the character of a being so highly imitative? Have not the actions, the words, the looks, the thoughts, even--for little children will sometimes interpret thought and feeling--of those who are so constantly about us as our parents, but especially the mother and the house-keeper, a prodigious influence in determining whether we shall be selfish or generous, self-governing or given up to the control


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of our passions, temperate or intemperate, sensual or pure, earthly or spiritual?

These, then, it is believed, are some of the gentler influences--the teachers that seem to teach not--which, like the soft dews of the morning and the evening, and the still more efficient moisture imbibed from the atmosphere, produce, by their never ceasing operation, the most important results. Mothers and teachers, says Dr. Rush, sow the seeds of nearly all the good and evil in our world. Teachers, he might have said, do this; since man is everywhere, in no small degree, what he is, by education--and since all persons and things become our teachers, and serve to draw forth, develope, or form us. Or he might have said, with nearly equal truth, that mothers do the work; since, if the doctrines of the foregoing paragraphs are true, mothers must be, from their very position, the most efficient teachers. Not that they always do the work well; this is quite another matter. But teach us they must--educate us they must--whether their instruction and education be good, bad or indifferent.

They educate us not only intellectually and morally, but physically. It is mothers who operate on our whole nature. Other educators, as the world now is, seldom reach the physical man. This whole field, or nearly the whole of it, is left to the sole direction and disposal of the mother


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and house-keeper. How important, then, is maternal influence! How important that mothers should understand this subject! How important that they should not only know, but also feel! How poorly fitted to sustain the maternal office is she who neither knows its dignity, nor feels nor heeds its responsibilities! And who that has any sense of the incompetency of modern female education, and is aware that scarcely one in a thousand is trained either to know or feel the greatness of her prerogative, the dignity of her character, or the weight and solemnity of her resposibilities, will not do with all his might what his hands find to do, to change the aspect and tendency of that education, and to render woman, and the sphere in which she moves, properly understood and appreciated, especially by herself?

I take the ground that the most efficient school of education is the domestic or family school; and that the MOTHER, whether wise or ignorant, learned or unlearned, healthy or sick, pious or impious, is the most efficient educator. Especially is this school the first and most important forfemale children. I take it for granted, also, that a work which shall assist the mother in the right management of her household, is a work on education; even if it be confined, as I intend this shall be, chiefly to those maternal duties which bear upon the formation


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of the physical character. I have even confined my remarks, in this volume, chiefly to what are commonly called household duties. The more direct efforts to form physical character have been treated in another work;* and the more direct efforts, intellectual, moral and medical, I have reserved for future consideration. In short, the duties of the mother, as a house-keeper, have seemed to me sufficient for a single volume of reasonable size; and I have believed that when we consider that the body is the house the soul lives in, and that the soul takes its hue, as it were, from the character and condition of the dwelling it occupies, we shall not find that the importance of mere house-keeping, in its bearing upon the formation of human character, has ever been over-estimated, or its tendencies on human happiness overrated.

[Editorial note: The following note appears at the bottom of page 27 in the original text.]

*The "Young Mother."

Do I then confound the mother and the house-keeper? Do I consider the terms as synonymous? I certainly do, in the present work. For though domestics or servants were admitted to a family, the mother should still be the mainspring of all its movements. If she does not perform all the labor with her own hands, assisted by her husband and children, she should at least direct others how to do it. What she knows and believes and feels


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would most promote the physical welfare of her family, should be accomplished, whether it be by her own hands or those of others. Am I not, then, perfectly right, in using the terms mother and house-keeper, for my present purpose, as synonymous?

I would, however--for it would make the duties of a house-keeper more simple, as well as more efficient--that every mother could perform all the duties of her family, without that aid which in fashionable life is now quite common, and which seems to involve the idea of a superior and an inferior class of citizens. And I hope and trust that I shall be able, in the progress of these pages, to make it appear, that as a general rule--to which of course there may be exceptions--every mother can do this.

I use the terms mother and house-keeper in the way I do, also, because, after all, they are, in a vast majority of cases, the same thing. The custom of keeping servants has not yet found its way very far beyond the precincts of our cities, towns and villages. If these pages should be read at all, it will be chiefly by those who perform their own household duties; or at least by those who closely oversee and direct. Those who fancy themselves excused, by their condition, from the performance of both of these duties, will not be likely to take


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the trouble to read a work on house-keeping. They will prefer to spend their hours in quite another manner. Or if they read at all, it is likely to be the fashionable nonsense of the day, and not that which aims at utility, or public or private happiness.

I am, indeed, acquainted with one house-keeper, who, though sensible, intelligent, refined and benevolent, fully believes the duties of a mother and house-keeper to be totally incompatible with each other. "The female who undertakes to fulfil her duties," she observes, "to her husband, her children, and society around her, has already more in hand than she can well perform. No matter how small her family, so that it consists of husband and children, and sustains the relations which a family ought to sustain to other families; its mistress, if wise and conscientious, cannot otherwise than be fully employed in the discharge of these duties without the addition of more. Not a single spare hour is left her for cooking, washing, mending, chamber work, &c. These last--some of them, at least--may indeed be and often are done; but they will forever be found to clash with the former--and cannot, I am certain, ever be safely or usefully performed by the same individual."

Now it appears to me that this young house-keeper has either made a very serious mistake-


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and she is not the only individual who inclines, now-a-days, to the same opinion--or there must be a mistake in the divine arrangement and economy. The plan of the Creator most certainly does require that these household duties should, as a general rule, be performed by the mother. Without attempting, at this time and in this place, to go deeply into the argument, I will simply state my belief--satisfied if in the progress of what I have to say in other parts of the volume, I shall be so successful as to make it appear that my belief is well founded--that there is not only no incompatibility in the case, but that common sense, philosophy and christianity, actually demand the performance of these varied duties by the same individual.

The house-keeper to whom I have referred has, however, disclosed to me the secret of her scepticism. She modestly owns that she was not trained to do house-work; that her heart is not in it and cannot be; that she sorely dislikes the sight of a kitchen, especially of everything that pertains to the business of cookery; and finally, she more than intimates a determination to maintain and cherish such opinions, views and feelings, through life.

But there is an apology for such females in this very fact, that they have been educated wrong.


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They have not only been trained to the neglect of household duties, and to the belief that they are quite beneath them, and properly belong to the vulgar, but to the erroneous idea that they involve a life of hardship, pain and drudgery. Whereas the truth is, that there are no labors which taken together are more easy or more healthful; and, if properly conducted, there are few which give more freedom as well as more leisure for recreation and study.

Should the period arrive, in the history of our world, when household management shall be regarded as indispensable to a correct female education, and when no young lady shall any more think of attaining to years of maturity without a knowledge both of the theory and practice of housewifery, than she does without a knowledge of reading and writing, this unreasonable prejudice against cookery, washing, mending, &c., which are important parts of this employment, will cease to exist; and one powerful motive which now exists, either concealed or avowed, for employing others, or at least, for treating them as our inferiors, will be almost entirely removed. It is too much to hope that such a period will sooner or later arrive? Or is christianity destined to effect but a partial reformation of humanity--and to obtain but half a triumph?

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To meet the now growing belief that house-keeping does not belong to the mother, necessarily--that its details and duties are not only irksome and hateful in their nature, but absolutely incompatible with hers--and to show as clearly as possible that they are not incompatible, but that the employment is much more simple, more pleasant, more rational, and more useful than is sometimes supposed, is at present a desideratum. It is with a view to this end that I have made the attempt to present, not merely the facts and principles of housewifery, but its philosophy and its dignity. And how much soever this whole matter is overlooked by some, contemned by many, and regarded as more or less a matter of hap-hazard by nearly all, I am fully confident that if there be a profession or occupation, which is, in its nature, truly dignified, and to which philosophy and philosophic instruction are more necessary or more applicable than to almost any other, it is to that of house-keeping. It is, I repeat it, a science; and though its practice should be chiefly confined to the family or maternal school, it should be recognized, at least in theory, in all schools for females, from the highest to the lowest--in Boston or in Franconia.

It is high time that this noble profession, lying as it does, like agriculture and horticulture, at the very foundation of human happiness, were disabused.


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It is high time the miserable notion that it is vulgar or mean, were discountenanced. It is quite time it were taken by wise and discreet mothers into their own hands, instead of being committed to those who have no interest in it; or at least no such interest as the mother has--a desire to promote by it, the highest well being of husband and children. Say what we will, it is the mother, and she alone, who can ever be expected to become the intelligent, the truly benevolent, or the truly skilful house-keeper.

We talk of the importance of legislation--and very properly. What republican does not admit, and--now-a-days at least--feel the importance of good and salutary laws? And yet where is there to be found a more efficient legislator than the house-keeper? "Let me make the ballads of a nation, and you may make its laws," said a person who understood well the tendency of human nature, and the causes which silently and almost imperceptibly operate to make human character what it is. But I would say, rather--Let me have the control of the nursery--let me direct the sweeping, the washing, the fire-building, the cooking, the conversation, &c., of the infant and the child--and I care comparatively little whether the laws are made by one man, by a few men, or by many men. I care comparatively little, as to the


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results on human happiness, for a single generation or even a century, whether the government be that of a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a democracy. If the human being is trained to obey, first from habit, and afterwards from a sense of duty, the laws and relations of the human constitution along with the laws divine, that being cannot, as a general rule, be very miserable, whether its residence be America, Burmah, Japan, Otaheite, Egypt, Soudan, Siberia or Greenland. But in proportion as an individual is not thus trained, will his condition be unhappy, and life itself seem to him, at times, but a doubtful blessing, though be have the clear sky of New England, or inhale the soft air of Italy, and the balmy breezes of Ceylon; or though he should be admitted to revel in paradise. Order is heaven's first law, it is said; but without this order in the little world within, of which the external world is but the transcript, there can be no heaven here, and I had almost said--and might have said it, so far as the creature whom we call man is concerned--there can be none hereafter.

We are accustomed to esteem wise and able counsellors. We do not always understand the laws framed by our legislators, in all their bearings on particular cases, and so we desire information, and sometimes direction, in questions which come up in regard to rights and duties. Hence the host


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of lawyers among us. And they are not without their use. The common prejudice against their honesty and integrity is altogether unreasonable. I believe a large majority of them are high-minded and honorable men. Perhaps there are, not unfrequently, too many. Still, I repeat it, a proportion is highly useful, taxed as the rest of the community may be and must be--as in the case of all other arrangements for the removal of the evils entailed on us by ignorance, error or infirmity--to support or sustain them. But what is the influence of the most able counsellor among us--I care not if he is a Webster, a Henry, or a Phillips--compared with the influence of the house-keeper? Her counsels, overlooked as they often are, whether she be the mother or not, have an influence in society, the sum total of which can never be over-estimated. She can establish what the law and the lawyer may labor forever in vain to accomplish; she can prevent, by her daily efforts, what, if not early prevented, no law or lawyers can ever cure--though their influence could be brought to bear seventy thousand years instead of seventy.

We are accustomed--most of us at least--to think favorably of the influences of the christian ministry. Though I am very far from being, in the cant language of those who complain so much


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of cant among us, of the number of the priest ridden, I am free to admit, that notwithstanding the clerical abuses in other parts of the world, and more especially in other ages, there never yet has been--since the creation--such a band of holy, self-denying friends of human improvement, elevation, and emancipation, as the Protestant ministry of the United States, especially New England; and for one, instead of diminishing their influence, I would increase it, at least thirty fold. Instead of one of these godly men and one true friend of civil and religious light and liberty to every thousand or two thousand persons, I would gladly have a minister with a society in every school district, and would cheerfully contribute my full proportion of what was really necessary for his comfortable and even liberal support. I would gladly see him spending his time, his talents and his strength, as a father in the midst of a hundred and fifty or two hundred persons, including men, women and children, and aspiring to no higher earthly glory than to be, not the brilliant orator among them, but the humble instrument of leading them, by his labors, his example, and his prayers, back to the bliss of Eden.

And yet, after all these concessions in favor of ministers and the ministerial office, what can the minister do for the moral, the social, religious


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elevation of mankind, without the aid of the house-keeper? He may watch, and labor, and pray for the soul; but the house-keeper can do more than all this. She presides over, and moulds, and shapes. She forms the "house" the soul "lives in;" and, in this way, almost entirely directs the motions and tendencies of the soul itself. What can a minister do for a person who continually breathes the impure atmosphere of filthy apartments; is drenched, daily, with hot, compound or over-stimulating drinks; or fed with hot, oily, indigestible or poisonous food; and whose very solids and fluids, in every "nook and corner," are, as it were, defiled? Worse, if possible, even than all this, what can he do to give a proper current to the thoughts and feelings, when every thought, and feeling, and motion which is kindled in the kitchen or the parlor, savors of some sensual gratification--good eating, good drinking, fashionable amusements, fashionable dress, equipage or money?

Many of us are accustomed to think favorably of christian missions, domestic or foreign; and well we may. That individual, male or female, old or young, high or low, rich or poor, of much or little influence, who does not feel the force of the command--"Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature"--that is, do all in your power to extend it to every human


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being--and who cannot say with Paul, "Wo is me if I preach not the gospel,"at least by example--is not more than half awake, as yet, to the true dignity of human nature; and that individual who does not, in this view, sympathize with modern missionary efforts, whatever may be the incidental or occasional mistakes or defects of those who direct or those who prosecute them, has not, in my view, become as yet, thoroughly imbued with the true gospel spirit--the spirit of Christ.

And yet what mission, foreign or domestic, has higher claims, even as a christian enterprise, than the mission of the house-keeper? To her is entrusted the development--provided she is at the same time both mother and house-keeper--of the buds of character; the first lineaments of self-denial, self government and self-sacrifice. Nay, more; she is herself required to exercise a degree of self-government and self-sacrifice, which is seldom if ever required of him who goes to India or the Sandwich Islands.

I do not mean by this, that the self-sacrifice of the foreign missionary is not sometimes greater than that of the true christian missionary in the household; but onlt that it is not so constant nor so great in the aggregate. It costs, indeed, a most painful struggle to leave one's friends, and relations, and country, to be consigned for life to--we know


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not what, till Providence reveals it in the event. The breaking away, even from the cold and sterile shores of our New England, is almost like tearing the heart away from the living system; and the pangs felt on reaching a foreign inhospitable shore, and landing or preparing to land amid a group of half naked, half fed, half brutal savages, is unknown, and must remain unknown except to those who have felt them. But there is something in human nature, independent even of divine influence, which enables it, in emergencies like these, to bear up. "As our day is, so is our strength." But these great trials excepted, we are less seldom called to self-denial abroad, perhaps, than at home. We can pursue what we deem a rational course of eating, drinking, dressing, conversing and acting, so far at least as we have the means of doing it, without subjecting ourselves to the "wise speeches" or the ridicule of those about us; as we should be, if we were at home.

But if in being missionaries at home we have fewer great trials or emergencies, they are yet constant and almost unremitted; and who that can even govern himself occasionally in great matters, has not found himself perpetually overcome in smaller things, and perpetually falling from his steadfastness? But of all persons in the world, who is more tired than the house-keeper, and the


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director and guide of some half a dozen children? Are they not continually looking to her for an example? Does she not know this? Does she not know that her every error--in eating, drinking, conversing--is educating them? Does she not know that the quality, quantity, &c., of food and drink, drawn in by the child at the breast, tends not merely to propagate danger and error, but to affect her own temper and character, modifying or affecting her example? Does she not know that she has not a child under her care, but is treading at every moment on the verge of destruction, physical and moral? And if watchfulness and prayer, and self-denial and self-sacrifice are necessary anywhere in the wide world, is it not here?

Every circumstance--I had almost said every thought and feeling--of the mother and all others around the child, is, in every waking moment of its early life, giving it a tendency to diverge from the desired point, the perfection of its nature. The whole current of fashion, in almost every family and out of it, is in opposition to the best interests of human nature; and I have never yet known the parent who had the moral courage to act up to all the true interests of her child, in opposition to the standard which fashion has arbitrarily set up, even so far as she knew what her duty was. All, so far as I know, yield more or


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less to the temptations with which they are surrounded. Now it is the moral courage to do right as far as we know, as well as to seek for farther light, which I deem more scarce than a spirit which would lead us to become missionaries on a scale where we should be more exposed and known as such. Or in other words, it seems to me that it requires more self-sacrifice to be a missionary to a household than to a foreign country.

Nor is the influence of the house-keeper in the formation of character, by any means wholly negative. Not only is a habit of self-denial required to be attended to at every step of her own life and the lives of those whom she is forming, with a view to save herself and them from loss and suffering, but also with a view to train them up for God and for their country. In vain, or almost in vain, may other efforts be made, if the proper work be not done here, in the family. And could it be well done here, for a few generations--could the nations which have not yet embraced christianity but see a race of such christians as might under God be reared were the foundations properly placed--we might then hope the labors of foreign missionaries would begin to produce their appropriate and expected fruits. The Jew, the Mahometan and the Pagan, might then be led to say--not as now, in irony, but in sincerity--"See how these christians love


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one another;" and what they would see and admire as truly lovely, they would not be slow to examine and ultimately to embrace.

How great, in this view, the dignity of the housewife--not, indeed, the pseudo character to whom this appellation is sometimes awarded, but she who is the housewife indeed--such a housewife as Solomon describes, and as the future millennial ages of the world are destined to realize! What can she not do, who, with the light, and truth, and love of a servant of the Most High, and with the bodies, and minds, and souls of men--from the very first--committed almost entirely to her charge, shall do for them what God and holy angels and holy men expect? It is astonishing beyond astonishment, that men made in the image of God, should have hitherto, as if with one consent, contrived to render house-keeping disreputable, and those who attend to it with their own hands as vulgar. Nothing can be more directly at variance with the truth--nothing, or at least hardly anything, more in the way of human improvement.

Much is said in our day--and too much cannot certainly be done--in the way of promoting reform in prisons. But how much more can the house-keeper do--as will probably be seen hereafter--in the way of preventing the necessity not only of


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legislation and lawyers, but of crimes and prisons. It is because children have first been prisoners in the domestic circle--in body, mind and soul--that they afterwards become state prisoners. Their appetites become perverted by exciting food and drink, and by this means, and by means of bad associations with domestics or others, their minds and souls become greatly injured, till they are ready to yield to and become the slaves of every temptation, and the votaries of every bad habit. And thus are they educated, and thus do they educate themselves, to vice and crime; and thus are our prisons and dungeons filled with convicts. How happy will be the day when there will be no such thing known as two classes of persons in families, a higher and a lower--jailers and prisoners--but when all the family, however numerous and how little soever united by ties of consanguinity, will be equal and free, dwelling together, eating and drinking together, and whether of one nation or another, always uniting around the same domestic altar.

How happy the time when no restraint will be necessary to keep children from mixing, too much, with those who would degrade them or lead them into temptation; when there will be but one common interest in the whole family circle; and when children will begin to regard father and mother,


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and brother and sister, and adopted brother and sister--if such there must be--not in the relation of jailers and prisoners, but in the relation of truest and best friends!

We have Moral Reform Societies. But a right early managment would prevent the necessity of all such associations. If every house-keeper knew her own dignity, and would live up to it, impurity and licentiousness would soon cease. The same bad habits, physical and moral, which fill our prisons, fill also our houses of ill-fame. Confectionary, and bad food, and bad drinks, and uncontrolled passions, and misplaced affections--all of which might be banished, were house-keeping restored to its primitive dignity--are the prolific source of half the licentiousness with which our earth is afflicted, and changed from an Eden to a scene of mourning, lamentation and wo.

We boast of our literary institutions--our infant schools, our common schools, our high schools, our institutes, our colleges, our universities. But what is the influence of these, excellent as it may be, compared with that of the kitchen and parlor? Say what we will, it is here--exactly here--that our characters, even in a literary point of view, are determined. I would not say formed; for of this, I am not sure. But I have never yet known, personally--others may have known such instances


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--of a lover of knowledge or moral progress,who was not initiated into this love by those who had the control of his early infancy and his childhood. On the contrary, I could fill half this volume with anecdotes of those in whom the seeds of that love of literature and science which they subsequently manifested, was sown in early infancy by that maternal teacher whose influence is, after all, most awakening, most impressive, and most permanent.

Were it left to my choice to say which of two things the world should have--the right sort of household management and education, with no school instruction whatever, or the best sort of school education of every grade, but without anything done in the household beyond what is now done by nine tenths if not nineteen twentieths of mankind--I should not hesitate a moment to decide on the former. Such is the value I attach to the domestic institution and the family school; and such are my conceptions of the native dignity of house-keeping.

I do not mean by all this that the house-keeper is to have, necessarily, her set hours and set lessons of instruction, though I wish her to have time for even these. But I mean that she should so manage in all concerns of the household--and these it is which, as I shall never cease to repeat, go far to form character, the great object and


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end of education--that the results, along with the aid of those who cooperate with her, shall do more for the children which form a part of it, than all else which is done for them, directly or indirectly, in the whole process of their forming stage of progress. But is not that the truest, noblest literary institution in the world--nay, is it not more than all others--which secures all this as its inevitable results? It certainly is so; it cannot be otherwise.

Let me not be understood as saying, that in the present state of things, every housewife who hadleisure to do things as she ought, and to control things as she ought, would do them right. There would be still, as there now is, both good and bad education. But even as the general knowledge of housewives now is, the common belief that the family is more important, because more influential on character than all other schools, would be in favor of human happiness, provided they would adopt, as speedily as may be, those principles, and that rational system of house-keeping, which it is the object of this work to recommend and inculcate.

Lastly, we value highly--but probably not too highly--the services of the worthy physician. He is one of our most intimate and bosom friends; and we are generally ready to award him a seat by the


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side of him who labors to remove or prevent the maladies of our souls. But if "prevention is better than cure"--if, according to the motto of one of our medical journals, "the best part of the medical art is the art of avoiding pain," who shall say that the maternal house-keeper, who holds, as it were, in her hands, the keys of life and health, and can prevent more pain--I was going to say infinitely more--than the ablest physician can cure, shall not be considered as at least a fellow being, and a fellow laborer in the common cause of humanity? I claim not for woman a place which does not belong to her; but I do claim that though she is not, and cannot be, and should not be a physician, in every sense of the term, yet she is, and should be, more to every family than the physician--incomparably more.

Every female should be trained to the angelic art of managing properly the sick. It is strange that in view of the common maxim, that a good nurse is worth more than a physician, we should have so few professional nurses, male and female, among us. Yet if we had a dozen of these, in all parts of our country, for each physician, it would not absolve woman from the universal obligation of attending to the subject. There is no female in the wide world--above all, no one who sustains the proud prerogative of being a mother, to say


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nothing of the house-keeper--that may not be called to watch and nurse the sick; nay, that will not be so, almost inevitably. But how many lives have I seen destroyed, through the ignorance or the over-kindness--usually both combined--of the mother?

I will not dwell longer, here, on the details of this subject. To show the superiority of the mother who is a house-keeper, to the physician, whom we everywhere so highly esteem, would be to follow her through her whole course of the physical management of her child, in sickness and in health; and to observe every step she takes, above all the rest, in the processes of cookery. This would be a task which I cannot attempt here. If I have done little more than toassert the dignity of the housewife, this at least is something. I trust, however, that subsequent chapters will do something in the way of proving it. I trust they will present some views on the duties of the house-keeper, that have not hitherto been current among us. Let not the reader, however, cry heresy, simply because the opinions presented are new. Truth is truth still, whether it be old or new, and whether it be fashionable or unfashionable.

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> CHAPTER II.

> FIRST PRINCIPLES.

1. Obey the dictates of conscience. 2. Dare to disobey the mandates of fashion. 3. Dignify your profession. 4. Keep the house yourself, as much as possible. 5. Whatever is worth doing, is worth doing well. 6. Importance of securing the aid of the husband and others. 7. Anecdote and reflections.

THE first resolution of a young house-keeper should be, to do what she believes she ought to do; in other words, to obey the dictates of her own conscience. I care not so much what other qualifications she posseses; if she has not this primary one, she can never succeed in discharging, perfectly, the duties of her profession. I do not, indeed, advise her to pay no attention to the opinions of others. She should have some regard to opinion, public and individual; these should be taken into the account, in making up a judgement as to her own proper course; but when her own course and duty are clear, and the time has arrived for action, let her act according to the dictates of her conscience.

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There are those who are swayed by fashion. They do not merely take fashion into the account, when making up a judgement what their duty is; but even after the decision is made, perhaps in the fear of God, they dare not executs it fully, lest it should be unfashionable; lest "my lord" or "my lady" should look sideways at them. Such housewives will never succeed well. They must resolve to do what they believe to be right, in view of all circumstances and consequences--and fashion among the rest; but the decision once made what duty is, let them go forward. Let there be no misgivings--no fears. Persons who do thus may control the fashions. Those who tremble to execute the cool decisions of their own sober judgement, lest it should be, after all, unpopular, will be the most miserable of slaves. They will be "hewers of wood and drawers of water" to a tyrant whose only law is that of caprice--and whose service is spiritual death.

The house-keeper, as I have already said, must have correct notions of the dignity of her duties. She is not ministering to the wants of a few bodies, considered merely as bodies; but through these bodies to the wants of immortal souls. I am sometimes astonished to find the employment of housekeeping rated so low. It would seem as if a world where employments are valued inversely, according


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to their uselessness, must be turned topsy-turvy. Yet such a world is ours. The cultivator of the soil and the keeper of the house, are considered as mere drudges, nigh akin to the domestic animals of which they have the charge; while the useless or almost useless being, that struts about doing nothing and producing nothing, either by the labor of body or mind--he is the true man, the man of value. He may, perhaps, have a soul.

These things ought not so to be. Young house-keeper, you must resolve, that so far as in you lies, they shall not be so. But in order to this, learn to reverence yourself and respect your profession. Make no unworthy concessions of inferiority. Just so surely as the soul takes its hues--yea, its character too--from the condition of the clay tenement in which it dwells, just so surely is your profession that of determining what the condition of this clay tenement shall be; and it is one of the noblest that can adorn or exalt humanity.

Away, then, from your mind, every unworthy idea concerning domestic life. Away the feeling, that your occupation is an inferior one. Fools may call it so; fools have called it so. If you were mere automatons--if amid the din of pots and kettles, it were not possible for you to think or feel--the case would be altered. But the service which I propose to the house-keeper is not a


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slavery to her employment. She has something more to do than to attend to pots and kettles. She has the temporal, and, to some extent, the eternal well being of those around her at her disposal. She has character at her disposal. Her work, in short, is education--the physical education and management of a rising family. It is more, even; she cannot be the physical without being the intellectual and the moral educator of her family. This I trust I shall make more plain hereafter.

One important resolution of a young house-keeper should be, to keep the house herself. Let her dispense, as much as possible, with all aid, except that of her children and husband. I know, indeed, that many an individual is so situated that she must have additional help; but let her not consider it a privilege, but a misfortune; and let her embrace, with joy, the first opportunity of going back to the simplicity of nature.

The young house-keeper should not only resolve--she should execute her resolves. Let it be understood, once for all, that it will be of as little value to resolve merely, if that should be the last of it, as it will be to read this book, and yet give no heed to its sayings. The Germans have a proverb--"He is the wise man, not who tells what he intends to do, but who does it." In like manner, she is not the wise house-keeper who suffers


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her resolves to be mere resolves; but who puts every worthy resolve into immediate execution.

Let her remember, too, that whatever is worth doing, is worth doing well. In this point of view there are no little things pertaining to housewifery. Indeed, as it is in morals, so it often is in physical matters, the little things of life become, by their results--their bearing on human character and human happiness--the truly great things.

She is not the worthy house-keeper who slights this or that duty, solely because it is a small one. She who would come up to the dignity of her occupation must, for the time, throw her whole soul into her employment. No matter how trifling it may, at the moment, appear; let her call to her aid her general principle--Whatever is worth doing, is worth doing well; and let it invest her labors with their real value. It is said of Dr. Goldsmith, that he "always seemed to do best that which he was doing." This is what is needed by the young house-keeper.

I have said that the young house-keeper should, as much as possible, keep the house herself. If she has the right sort of husband, she will, however, receive great aid from him. The husband can do an immense deal to render the labors of his wife lighter or more severe. He can bring more or less of dirt into the house. He can assist more or less


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in teaching the children to be cleanly. He can bring in more or less of wood and water. All these, and a thousand more of the little, almost nameless things of life, can be so managed as greatly to facilitate or retard the progress of the house-keeper, according to the disposition. Wo to the housewife who has a husband that refuses not only to help her, but to take any pains not to hinder her, or increase, unnecessarily, her labors!

I will not undertake to say how far a husband can go, in any particular case, in the way of rendering his wife assistance, without interference with his peculiar duties. But I do say he can go very far. I have been acquainted in hundreds of families--intimately so in many--and I can truly say, I never yet saw the husband who assisted to the extent he might have done. I have never yet seen one who did not leave undone many little things which he ought to have done, and who did not do some things which ought to have been omitted.

You will say, perhaps, that I am out of my sphere, just now; and that I am writing for husbands. By no means. I am only telling the house-keeper what some men are. Is not this needful knowledge? Is it not especially so, if along with the knowledge of what they are, I try to tell you what they should be, and what is and what is not


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in your power, in regard to rendering them what they should be? If instead of thinking me out of my sphere, and returning me thanks, you set about complaining of me, my case will be a sad one indeed; for I shall be sure to get no thanks from the husband, for revealing our secrets.

Let me tell you, however, be the hazard what it may, that you may train your husband to help you, if you will begin right; or you may, at your option, train him to hinder you. I have witnessed both sorts of training, and the consequences of both.--I repeat it, your husband will help you much or little, according as you begin with him. And so will your children.

The way to begin right is to talk the matter over. He wishes, as much as you--at least this is commonly the case--to live independently. He does not want, more than you, the trouble or the expense of domestics. Tell him of the importance and even necessity that you should receive, from time to time, a little of his aid, when he is about the house. Tell him, moreover, in these moments of calm conversation, what little fixtures, conveniences, &c., you need. Do not wait till the moment you feel the inconveniences of not having them begin to press upon you, and then scold about it. This will not accomplish your object; at least, it will not do it in the best manner.

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It is not difficult, where affection is mutual, to convince a husband of the importance of these kind attentions, which cost him so little, but which are so valuable to yourself. The great difficulty is, to form in him the habit of affording them. To this end you must not hesitate to tell him plainly but kindly what you need. More than this; you must set the example of assistance by aiding him. There are a thousand little things which you can perform for him, from time to time. See then that you are nor slow to perform them, and that you do it cheerfully.

Some men are trained in such a manner as to need little training afterward. Others are trained never to do anything in the house, at all. With the last you will have great trouble; but have courage, for your difficulties may all be surmounted.

I knew an excellent housewife whose husband had never been trined to render the least assisstance to the wife, in any of the little things about the house. He scarcely knew how to do so much as to bring in a pail of water. If requested to do it, he did not hesitate, but did it cheerfully; but as the request was seldom made, the assistance was seldom afforded.

The first months of matrimony at length over, the requests for aid, instead of increasing, were diminished; and along with the unfrequency of the


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calls on the husband came an increasing discinclination to comply with them when made. The result, in short, was, that it cost so much urging to get aid from him, that the effort was finally given up.

I have known this young housewife, when toiling very hard, over her wash-bench or elsewhere, when she really needed a little help, and when her husband could have afforded it as well as not--I have known her, I say, to leave her work, and go for wood and water, or into the field for vegetables to boil for dinner. All this I have known done, not only for a year or two, but for many years. I have, moreover, seen the father and one or two sons, almost as large as himself, sit in the house, doing nothing, perhaps, except holding a little loose or unimportant conversation with each other or with some neighbor; and I have known them sit for hours, while the mother, fully and laboriously employed directly before their faces, would often leave her work to perform little tasks that ought not to have been required of her in any case, and much more in the circumstances I have mentioned. She would not ask for aid; and as it was never volunteered, the sons grew up in all the stupidity to which the father has been educated; and indeed to a stupidity still worse. They seemed not to know that they had it in their power to do anything for the mother.

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Now it is difficult to know which to blame most in such a case as this; but it is impossible for me to help pitying rather the most, the house-keeper. And yet I am quite sure her situation, that of a complete drudge, might have been avoided. She might have trained her husband--and afterward her sons--to a course entirely different. Though she had an iron constitution, she is now, at sixty, worn out; and worn out, too, for want of the little attentions of which I have been speaking.

Let me say again, still more confidently, that such a course is entirely uncalled for and unnecessary. More than this, it is wrong. This housewife of whom I have spoken, never attempted--I veture to affirm it--to discuss the subject with her husband, in her whole life. She performed the whole household labor of a family consisting of herself, a husband, and four or five children, with few conveniences and with no foreign help; in addition to which she spun hundreds of runs of yarn, and wove her hundreds of yards of cloth every year. She performed, in fact, what is now considered--when we rememeber at what disadvantage it was done--at least enough for two common females; and she did it well. There was no slighting of her work, nor any neglect of cleanliness. All her washing, ironing, baking, brewing, making, mending, &c., was performed with the


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utmost neatness. Beyond even this, she found time for a great deal of reading and some visiting. She also found time for reading with and instructing her children. I do not know of more than one housewife in the whole neighborhood who did more than she in the education of her family--for here, too, she was without aid or cooperation--or who labored in this department with more success.

I know well the old maxim, it is better to wear out than to rust out; and there is much of truth in it. But we are not required even to wear out unnecessarily. Nay, more, we have no right to do it. It is as much our duty to God to preserve our health and strength as long as possible, consistently with the reasonable discharge of our duties, as it is to preserve either of them at all. But this housewife erred not only in wearing herself out prematurely, and shortening her life some fifteen or twenty years, but she did a most flagrant wrong to her own family. For to say nothing of her husband and of the wrong she did to him by leaving him to wrong her, as she did, she was the means of giving forth to the world two young men of the same habits, and liable to treat their wives with the same neglect.

We may thus see how easily the omission to do right may slide into a positive wrong. It happens, moreover, in the case I have metioned, that the


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results to the sons, are not merely conjectural or even theoretical. Neither of the two is predisposed, in his daily habits, to depart from the way in which he has been trained; and if a tendency to such a disposition is ever happily evinced, it is all a matter of effort, and not of ease and cheerfulness.

I have dwelt the longer on this topic, because it involves a very great evil, and because I do not remember to have seen it mentioned elsewhere. It seems to me to be regarded as a little thing, or a heresy, and on that account it is generally over-looked.

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> CHAPTER III.

> HAVING A PLAN.

Why a plan is indispensable. Hour of rising. Arrangements. Breakfast. Particular advantages. Mrs. Parke's opinion. Time gained, how to be employed.

"ORDER is heaven's first law," says one of the poets; and it is, or should be, the first law of that place which properly managed would, of all other places below the sun, most nearly resemble heaven.

But to have order, there must be plan. Here, too, more, perhaps, than anywhere else, is it important for the housewife to consult with her husband. What can she do, in this respect, without him? And if there are children in the family--as I have all along taken for granted--this circumstance renders mutual consultation still more indispensable.

I know a plan is difficult. So difficult, indeed, is it, that no plan is often formed by the house-keeper; and of plans which are formed, not one in ten is long adhered to. The departures from a plan formed, soon become frequent, and, as it was


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made without taking the circumstances, and wishes, and feelings of the whole family fully into the account, it forms at length the exception, and not the general rule; and is ultimately in danger of being regarded as a mere nullity.

And yet, difficult as it is, its necessity--I repeat it--is imperative. This living at hap-hazard, in families, is ruinous; not so much, indeed, to health as to the intellect and the morals. It is bad enough, however, for either; and is one of the errors in house-keeping which should be strictly and sedulously avoided.

I do not believe there is one husband in ten, who would not try to conform to a reasonable plan--and more than this, the housewife need not ask of him--when proposed and urged by one whom he loves; and when, above all, he finds her rigidly conforming to it herself. I say conformity is all she need ask of him, but I believe she would gain more than this. I believe that thousands of families fall into ruin for want of plan or system on the part of the housewife, while the head of the family remains ignorant of the cause; but I believe, too, there are some sensible men, who, without knowing--for want of experience--the value of order and system, would so approve of it at first sight, and be so cheered by the example of a wife, that they would conform, at once, to almost anything


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which should be proposed, at least long enough to make a fair experiment.

The hour of rising should be assigned for each--for the husband, the housewife, the children, the domestics, (if domestics there must needs be;) and it should be distinctly and cordially assented to. That hour should be early. I do not undertake to assign the precise time which is adapted to different persons, ages, habits, &c.; this is of less consequence than that there should be a time, and that it should be as seldom as possible deviated from. The master of the family, as he is supposed to need less sleep than any of its members, is the proper person to rise first; but if there be that energy wanting--that readiness to cooperate and carry on the plan--which may sometimes exist, and if, too, the thing be perfectly understood and agreed on, the house-keeper may be first.

There is no difficulty of awaking at a desired hour of the morning, when one has a strong motive for it; but it is to be regretted that when we sleep thus, on tip-toe as it were, our sleep is not so sound or so refreshing as under other circumstances. I therefore prefer that there should be some ingenious contrivance, to awaken a house-keeper at first--perhaps an alarm clock, if nothing better should present--until the habit is effectually formed; after which, she will find little difficulty


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of awaking when she wishes to do so. The power of habit, in this respect, is well known. At the appointed time, she should rise and call up the rest.

The hour for breakfast--and for devotion, if that precede breakfast-should also be assigned; and when thus fixed, should not be delayed except on special occasions, and these should be exceedingly rare. Better in all respects, to sit down a few minutes before the time, than one minute or even one half minute later;--better for the body, better for the mind, and better for the whole character. The same remarks may be applied to every meal during the day.

The time to be spent at breakfast should be fixed, as well as that to be spent at every other meal; and the allowance should be more liberal than is common in our country. It ought to be at least half an hour each for breakfast and supper, and an hour for dinner. But whether it should be less or more, let it be fixed; and except in emergencies, as in the arrival of a friend, or the occurence of an accident, let it seldom if ever be departed from.

Hours, also, should be alloted by the good house-keeper, to every kind of work which is known to recur statedly in connection with meals, or daily in connection with the arrival of particular


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times or seasons. The hour for evening devotions and for retiring to rest should be equally definite.

There are some individuals who, for want of plan, labor twice as hard to effect a given object as others. They pass through life in this manner--they are mere drudges, and yet seem to get nothing done. They are apt, moreover, to pass through life fretting. Their neighbors get along so easily, as if life were mere pastime, while they--poor unfortunates!--must toil on without hope or prospect of relief, except by death.

There are not a few who, with comparatively little to do, seem to be always in a hurry, and yet are always too late. They are a little too late about rising; then a little too late about breakfast; then too late about something else. It is as if they had lost half an hour in the morning, and were running and fretting all day to overtake it.

There are some advantages of early rising which are not easily explained, though they may be stated. The individual who rises at six in the morning, and goes to bed at ten in the evening, will, with the same amount of labor, have far less of fatigue, all other things being equal, than the person who rises at seven and goes to bed at eleven. Why is it so? Both are supposed to be employed sixteen hours, and both sleep eight hours, and they are supposed to have equal health and strength,


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and to labor equally hard. Why, then, I repeat it, should there be a difference?

She who rises at six will have less of headache, and thirst, and fever. Every person is, indeed, more or less feverish at evening. The pulse is more frequent, and there is more of thirst and lassitude than in the morning. In the robust, it is true, the difference is scarcely perceptible; but it nevertheless exists in a greater or less degree. When we do not eat late suppers, however, or have too much company, or sit up beyond eight or nine o'clock, sleep restores us; and we rise the next morning in our wonted health. We rise cheerfully, too; there is less of the feeling that we have not yet slept enough; there is less of headache or thirst; there is not so bad a taste in the mouth; and there is little of that disgust of life, which, at this hour, so often creeps in upon the house-keeper, and makes her feel as if she could not possibly get up and resume her daily round of duties. As housewives, in general, now manage themselves and their concerns, there will indeed be unpleasant feelings in any circumstances; but the course I have recommended will greatly diminish their number and their intensity.

I would not dwell longer on the necessity of "having a plan," if I did not see housewives almost everywhere suffering for the want of it.


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They labor, often, twice as hard as is necessary, and wear themselves out ten years sooner than would be necessary, were things done more upon system, and according to method and order.

Mrs. Parkes, in her book on Domestic Duties, complains bitterly of the habit in housewives, of hurrying from one thing to another, and regards it as highly destructive not only to health of body, but to the power and disposition to improve the mind. "I recommend to you," she tells the young housewife, "to plan the whole (of your work) out every morning; and, as far as you can command circumstances, to pursue your plan steadily. In what regards the business of your family, endeavor to arrange its performance as nearly at the same time of each day, as can conveniently be done." "This," she adds, "will prevent confusion or hurry." In another place she says--"Let everything be done in order and in the right season, and you will never be inclined to deny the truth that "there is a time for all things."

Mrs. P. also complains of procrastination in young housewives; and says it is a form of self-indulgence that entirely defeats its own intentions, by causing a load of business to be always hanging upon her shoulders. This habit is easily avoided by neglecting nothing which can be accomplished to-day, and by having, at every evening, a course


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marked out for each succeeding day. She even more than half encourages what some have called getting their work along one day beforehand, as in the following anecdote:

"I have seen a striking proof of the advantages of a contrary spirit, (the contrary of procrastination,) in Mrs. D.'s management, who has often been, laughingly, accused by her friends of performing to-day the duties of to-morrow, and anticipating all its wants. However this may be, her example is most worthy of imitation by all those who have large families; for, in hers, neatness, order and comfort are evident characteristics; and yet these are procured without any apparent effort or trouble; and Mrs. D. herself, though she does not enter into general society, has always devoted much time to the instruction of her children."

This leads us naturally to a very important part of the duty of all house-keepers, when there are children or young domestics; and to see the necessity of a plan for their benefit. There is no instruction that sinks deep like a mother's, whether that instruction is direct or indirect. I would have the young house-keeper form and pursue a meditated plan or system for her own comfort and health, but much more for the sake of her own peace, and comfort, and edification. I would have her do so for the comfort also of her husband and children,


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who are certainly, at all times, the more happy for it, in body and mind. But I would have her do so, above all, that she may find time not only to do her work slowly and instruct her daughters--yes, and her sons, too--in regard to the nature of her employments; but to give them numerous lessons in philosophy, chemistry, natural history, physiology, health, &c. Nor should I be satisfied till she had so simplified her business as to find time even for set lessons in her family, both in the forenoon and in the afternoon. The education--the right education--of a family of children, seems to me, I must say again, the more important part of the duty of a house-keeper, provided she is, at the same time, as I maintain she generally should be, the wife and the mother. But this subject of combining house-keeping with maternal instruction, cannot be pursued to its full extent in this volume. I will only repeat here a remark which can never be too often repeated, that this combination of elementary instruction with household duties, is one of the best methods--perhaps the only successful method--which can ever be devised for rendering the family what it was obviously intended by Divine Providence it should be, the most agreeable as well as most happy place in the world, for the young of both sexes. It is almost unnecessary to add, that should the time


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ever arrive, when the sons and daughters of our citizens come to prefer the kitchen, the parlor, the garden and the chamber, and the company and familiar conversation of the mother and of each other, to all the pleasures and enjoyments to be found abroad, half the temptation, and half the vice and crime in the world, will be prevented.

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> CHAPTER IV.

> KEEPING ACCOUNTS.

Every housewife should keep her own accounts. Deficiency in female instruction. Method of keeping an account. Advantages.

IT may excite a little surprise that I should insist on the necessity, in a young housewife, of keeping accounts. Her defective education, it will be said, unfits her for the task. This, however, is not strictly true. Every person who can read and write, can keep accounts. Not always in a way, perhaps, which would be perfectly intelligible to others, but in a way which would be intelligible to herself; and this is the main point to be secured.

But though we admit the ability of every person who can read and write, to keep his own accounts, it does not follow that the study of book-keeping is of no service. I deem it highly desirable, not to say indispensable, to every individual of both sexes. And herein is a sad deficiency in the usual course of female instruction. Young ladies are taught many things of comparatively little value,


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while this subject is usually neglected. But if mothers are to be our house-keepers, the general intention of Providence respecting females requires that they should be trained to everything which pertains to house-keeping. There would be far less of poverty, and bankruptcy, and crime among us, if all females were trained to the art of book-keeping, and if all wives kept their own accounts.

Every article purchased by the house-keeper, let it be ever so small, should, every evening, be carefully and regularly entered. All the particulars should be mentioned, and all the circumstances preserved. This account should be occasionally reviewed, examined and adjusted. In this way, the house-keeper will not only be acquiring the habit of order, but will, at the same time, be studying frugality and economy. She will see how readily small sums swell into large accounts, and discover, from time to time, many items of expenditure which might have been omitted, without in the least diminishing the happiness of any member of the family.

Such a course will, in short, greatly assist her in comparing her expenses from time to time, with her or her husband's income; so that the former may not be suffered to exceed or go beyond the latter. There is a sort of recklessness on this


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subject, apparent in our community, which it becomes every rational, and above all every christian house-keeper to avoid.

It is, moreover, a source of satisfaction as well as of pecuniary advantage to the husband, to find his wife carefully preserving a record of everything she expends. Not that he wishes, by any means, to act as a spy upon her proceedings. But as he keeps, or ought to keep a regular account himself, it is not only convenient but indispensable that her purchases should be entered somewhere; and what better method can be devised than that she should keep a book of her own?

The principal objection to this duty of a house-wife is, that it consumes time. Without availing myself of what I deem a fundamental principle everywhere in life, that there is always time for everything which ought to be done, my reply would be, that on the principles involved in the present volume, every house-keeper will have so much of relief from the ordinary routine of domestic concerns, as will afford her ample leisure for keeping her accounts. Indeed I deem it useful for all men, women and youth, to keep a record of their expenses through life; and I believe that if we have money to spend and time in which to expend it, we have also time enough to make a faithful and legible record of the expenditure.

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This suggestion is not one of mere theory. I have known a few house-keepers who kept a memorandum of their expenses, in this way, simply for the purposes I have mentioned. I am not here speaking of the regular accounts kept with the baker, the milk-man, the wash-woman, &c.; but of an account kept by the housewife for her own and her husband's amusement and instruction, and ultimate profit.

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> CHAPTER V.

> KEEPING A JOURNAL.

General importance of keeping a journal. Qualifications. Method should be simple. Materials of the journal. A difficulty--how overcome. Reflections.

THIS duty is not deemed peculiar to the house-keeper. Every individual in the world would derive benefit from preserving a daily record of events, with the reflections to which they give rise. It is asked, what there is, in the monotony of the parlor and kitchen, worth recording in a journal?

I do not deny that the duties which pertain to house-keeping are somewhat monotonous; but so are those which pertain to almost every other occupation or profession. Much of the monotony, however, is owing to a monotonous state of the mind. Few persons are as thoroughly imbued as they should be with the spirit of improvement. Too many look upon the stream of life, as it passes, to be still the same; whereas it ought to be regarded as ever fresh, and new, and varying.

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Let a house-keeper be but once thoroughly filled with the desire of improvement inu her calling--let her carefully observe every process to which, in the discharge of her numerous duties, she is called--let her observe her failures in everything, no matter how small--and let her strive, from day to day, to do, in everything, what Paul the apostle requires, when he says, "do all to the glory of God,"--let her possess this spirit, I say, and I have no doubt she will find materials enough for a journal.

Her journal may be kept in the simplest manner. It is not necessary to observe any particular form. All that I would ask is neatness and sense. I would not make blots or write nonsense. I would recall once a day, or oftener if it were preferred, the events of the day--the