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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 --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 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 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 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.

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.

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 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 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 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 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, 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. 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 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, 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 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.

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, 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 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.

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.

In what sense man is omnivorous. Man a free agent. Animal food. Nutritious character of food. Table of nutritious substances. Second table, from the French. Inferences from these tables. Proofs of the inferior nutritive powers of lean meat. Three great divisions of aliments. The grand object of all food.

MAN has the power of deriving nourishment from almost every substance, both of the animal and the vegetable kingdoms of nature. A good education and temperate habits, will enable him not merely to subsist, but to enjoy a measure of health, and attain a degree of longevity, in almost every clime, and in the use of almost every kind of food, drink, &c. By this, however, is meant, that his stomach and digestive system are so "accommodating," that he can acquire the capacity of digesting, and to some extent, of assimilating--changing into blood, flesh, bones, &c.--not only flesh, fish, oil and blood, but almost all sorts of grain, seeds, nuts, roots, herbs, and even the bark of trees. In this sense, but it is in this sense alone, he may be justly said to be omnivorous.

But because he can subsist on all things, does it therefore follow that he must eat all things? In morals, character of some sort may indeed be formed under the worst examples and the worst influences; and so in matters which pertain to intellectual improvement, the mind may be fed and indeed may grow, by reading books of the most inferior character; but does it therefore follow that no choice is to be exercised? Because we can eat all things--morally and mentally--must we therefore do it? And so in physical matters, and especially in the matter of eating and drinking, because we can digest all things, must we therefore eat all things? For what purpose, then, is man a free agent? Why has the Creator delegated to him the right of choice?

That man has the power of choice, is a position which will not probably be controverted. That the Creator had an object or end in view in giving him this right of choice, is at least equally true. But do we conform to his purposes--do we execute his will and accomplish his ends--when we refuse to exercise it in regard to the selection of our food? Or are we to use our power of choice in regard to the company we keep and the books we read, and yet eat and drink at hap-hazard, guided by no rules--except, perhaps, to eat and drink everything we can--and exercising not the right of selection?

With this view--and I believe it to be a fair one--how strange is the conclusion, that because man can eat animal food and derive nourishment and even enjoy a measure of health from it, therefore he must use it!

I know it is attempted to fortify this argument by talking about the necessity of eating flesh or fish in order to get azote into the system; because we have four teeth in thirty-two which slightly resemble those of carnivorous animals; and because the structure of our intestines has been supposed to be midway between those of the animals that feed on flesh and those that feed on vegetable substances. But we forget that the ox and the horse, that eat no flesh, require azote as much as man. Now how are they to get it? Must they eat meat? As to the teeth, it is also well known that our teeth most resemble those of the ourang outang, who feeds on fruits and seeds. And as to the intestines, it is found out, of late, that the structure of these, so far as we can argue anything from it, is in favor of vegetable eating, entirely.

These old arguments are now generally given up. Lawrence, Cuvier and Lambe, in Europe, and a large number of the physicians of this country, do not hesitate to admit, that human health may be perfect, and life be sustained as long as it now is, in the exclusive use of good vegetable food, in almost every climate. We want no farther concessions. Admit but this; let it be granted that the physical welfare of man will not suffer from the exclusive use of vegetable food, and we are satisfied--nay, driven--in view of its moral and intellectual benefits, to adopt it without delay. The moral and social advantages of living on farinaceous vegetables and fruits, it is believed, have never been enough considered.

It is not my intention, in this work and in this place, to go deeply into the argument in favor of a vegetable and fruit diet. The foregoing considerations, with the few that follow, are all that my present limits will admit. These being premised, I shall take for granted the superiority of vegetable food, and proceed on that principle.

It is almost constantly said and believed, that our stomachs require a greater quantity of vegetable than of animal food, because the former is less nutritious; whereas, it is the reverse. Rice, and nearly or quite every form of bread, peas, beans, and many more vegetable substances, are much more nutritious than beef steak or any kind of lean meat or fish with which I am at present acquainted.

Primary aliments. Secondary aliments. Substitutes. The following part of the work a vocabulary. General plan. Its contents.

It has been already observed, that the farina ceous or mealy vegetables constitute the first and best division of human aliments. They may be regarded as primary --and the fruits secondary. Animal food, except to the infant or the savage, and in a few other cases and circumstances, is only a substitute for food which is better. The infant is trained to the farinacea, as soon as he can be; and the savage adopts this class of aliments as soon as he becomes civilized.

This primary class of aliments, in one way or another, forms--and indeed always has formed--the principal food of the majority of the human race. Rice, and pulse, and the various forms of grain--wheat, rye, barley, oats, and Indian corn--are the means of forming, and, I repeat the idea, ever have been the means of forming the great mass of blood which has flowed in human veins, and from which has been formed the mass of the human solids and fluids, ever since time began. I know this is not the general belief; but it is not, therefore, the less true. The Japanese, by tens of millions, live chiefly on rice; and so do the Chinese, and Hindoos, and Burmans, by their hundreds of millions. The tens of millions of middle Africa, and of southern and middle Europe, and even a part of the population of South America, live on rice, grain, roots and fruits. True, they are often compelled to do so, from stern necessity, or some other cause; but this does not alter the facts. Meat is sometimes used, but it is often as a condiment, and only assumes the rank of a principal food, (with the exception, perhaps, of the United States and one or two more countries of moderate population,) among the uncivilized or among the rich and luxurious; and its consequences to these two classes of men are most obvious. If it enervates the individual but slowly, it does so, therefore, the more surely; and what injures slowly the character of individuals, sinks rapidly the nation which is composed of those individuals.

In treating of the farinacea, it has been my object to present just that kind of information which would be valuable to a house-keeper, from day to day, as a vocabulary. In connection, therefore, with almost every substantial article of food, as wheat, or rice, or potatoes, I have introduced more or less of dietetic principles and facts, to which I solicit particular attention. I believe that this method of instruction--this combination of the various topics connected with food--is the very best popular way of presenting the subject which can possibly be adopted.

It was my original purpose to place the articles in the order of their value; I mean in the order of their value; I mean in the order of their value in my own estimation. Thus I have placed wheat first, which I deemed the most valuable article of human diet, corn next, rye next, and so on. I have not, however, in every instance, followed out my plan exactly; but the deviations from it are neither very wide nor very important. I also intended, originally, to treat of each article at a length which was somewhat in proportion to its usefulness as a part of our diet; but here my deviations have been much more frequent than in the former case. Again; this first class of aliments is made to include some substances which cannot, in philosophical strictness of language, be called farinaceous; but their number is not considerable. Lastly, I have not included in it every article, even of the class of farinacea, which has been used for food, but only some of the most important, and those with which I am acquainted.

The substances considered in this primary class of aliments--the farinacea--are wheat, Indian corn, rye, rice, barley, oats, potatoes, beans, peas, buckwheat, millet, beets, carrots, parsnips, turnips, onions, radishes, squashes, pumpkins, gourds, cabbages, lettuce, tomatoes, greens, celery, arrowroot, tapioca, salep and mushrooms.

Remarks on Wheat in general. Bread. Why wheat meal should not be bolted. Unfermented cakes. Loaf bread. Mixed bread. Crackers, biscuit, &c. Bread pudding. Boiled wheat. Toast, &c. Bread and milk. Bread and butter. Pastry. Gingerbread. Flour puddings. Bread and fruits. Potatoe bread.

AMONG all civilized nations, and not a few savage ones, bread constitutes a staple article of food. When I say this, however, I must do it with many limitations and some qualifications. Bread is a staple article of diet in theory, rather than in practice. There are few who are truly fond of bread in its simplest, most pure, and most healthful state. The concession that it is the "staff of life," is indeed generally made; but the belief is but "skin deep." People generally keep it about them as they do truth, and pretend to regard it as a staple; and many, doubtless, never dream that the fact is otherwise; but, as with truth so with bread, notwithstanding our concessions, direct and indirect, in its favor, many seem to avoid it as much as conveniently they can. Is there one person in a thousand who would tru