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the chagrin and mortification of the sister, who wishing to appear fashionable in her newly married state, without any regard for economy or thought of industry, which would place her in competition with Roman Lucretia, or the sisters of the great Grecian Alexander, found her present a spinning-wheel.

CHAPTER VII.

"A WOMAN was not taken from a man's head to rule him, or his feet to be trampled under foot, but from his side as a companion," and none but an uncivilized Indian would wish to see his wife a beast of burthen, or literally a hewer of wood and drawer of water, still our daughters should early be practically trained to all domestic vocations for which a wife was originally intended, and should never be neglected so far at least, as a careful supervision is concerned, even where her husband has furnished or supplied ample proxies to perform the menial or laborious duties of her house.

And there is at the present day a very prevalent and fatal error, particularly practised by the wealthy and opulent in the education of their daughters. Theories upon theories embracing every art and science are crowded upon the mind while practice is but partially or wholly disregarded.

A young lady may read a book on chemistry, treating on the natural laws of the fermenting, ascetic, and putrid stages of vegetable matter-all very well; but without practice she would be apt to present her husband with but an indifferent or poor piece of bread. She may theoretically understand the action of an alkali on a fixed oil, yet be so ignorant of a practical experiment as to forbid even a thought towards collecting ashes when her servants make a fire, or save the refuse tallow when cleaning a candle-stick, whereby soap could be made with which to wash her own clothes.

A woman who does not practically understand the “modus operandi" by which her lixivium or soap-suds

acts upon the greasy plate with an after rinsing in cold water before dried by a suitable cloth, or to cleanse a dinner-pot in the same manner, is unfit for the married life, for however a liberal or kind husband may supply his wife with servants, without this practical knowledge she is incapable of detecting frauds committed by her domestics, and as a natural consequence must for ever prove to him but little better than a quean, if not ruinous to his interest, besides incapable to meet him in the hour of adversity, or in a reverse of fortune, so as to prove herself what nature's God intended—a help-mate, Believing mothers too often greatly err in neglecting domestic branches in the education of their daughters.

My readers may charge me with inconsistency, or directly contradicting myself, as in former pages of this book I have repudiated training up our children with no higher views than those generally emanating from • kitchen scullions, or postillions; either office of which (as already stated), would be honorable when confined to the immediate vicinity of their own family; and I would even pass these bounds where necessity required, to prevent idleness, for an idle mind is one of the largest establishments in which his Satanic Majesty commences and finishes all his principal diabolical works.

Self-respect in a child is intimately connected with its future prosperity and success in business, and where it is trained to eat in the kitchen while the parents refresh themselves in the parlor with distinguished guests, that child in after life wishing to transact some business with a strange lady or gentleman of high distinction, would be more likely to knock at the kitchen than the parlor door.

Should the President of the United States, with all the members of his cabinet, accept an invitation to dine with a private gentleman and his lady, having a son and daughter not over seven years old; let the parents cause the children to be placed at the first table, if there is room, and it causes no infringement upon the comfort and happiness of their much respected guests, and the adoption of this course even in tenderer years of childhood, would not only enable the child in after life to practise and follow grace and dignity when forced to the table of genteel strangers, without the assistance of any parent to

counsel or direct them, but often prevent the infliction of wounds deep and mortifying to the feelings of their parents; and this latter point reminds me of an anecdote of two mothers, whom, for accommodation, I shall call Mrs. A, and Mrs. B. Mrs. A sends a written invitation to Mrs. B, requesting the company of herself and daughter Maria, aged three years, to tea, the following afternoon; the invitation was accepted, and the parties duly meet. Mrs. A announces the readiness of the table, and further requests Mrs. B to sit by and partake thereof; upon which Mrs. B, in a low whisper to her daughter (sitting in a small chair by her side), "Now Maria, like a good girl, sit quietly until mamma finishes her tea, and then you will be permitted also to come to the table." This charge was overheard by Mrs. A, who requested Maria's immediate presence at the table, declaring that "the company of the dear child formed not a small part of her anticipated and present happiness." Mrs. B assures

Mrs. A that the child could just as well wait as not, until her seniors finished at the first table, adding further, that when at home she was seated at meal times with the second table. Mrs. A rejoins, and as a matter of favor, insisted on Maria's placing herself immediately at the table beside her mother; the invitation so strong, and with a desire to please, Maria takes her appointed station, and before a blessing could be asked she desired a cake, and putting immediate action to the word, seized one from off the plate, upon which her mother cried out, "Maria, put that cake down," and by force wrenched it from her hand.

This first scene closed, a second opened, by the child's thrusting its hand into a dish of preserved quinces, which she so managed as to drag in part, nearly midway on the table, embellishing or ornamenting the cloth by the saccharine drainings which she had attached to her fingers, when immersed in the preserve dish; upon which Mrs. B, losing all her usual and dignified patience, screams out, "dear me, why Maria, how you act; I never saw the child behave so before in my life." Poor woman, she had never taught her child when at home to behave otherwise. Having already hinted at some of the benefits arising from a proper domestic training of our daughters, so as not only to lead them in paths of industry, but

also in those of frugality (two sure roads to wealth). I am reminded of two brothers sharing in a large patrimony-marrying sisters of equal fortune. The younger brother, though not more industrious or frugal than the older, continued to thrive, while the elder, year after year grew poorer, and by virtue of legal executions was by sheriffs and constables stripped of all his movable property, even to the most common conveniences of life, besides a heavy mortgage on his farm. A field of about five acres which the elder brother had at the proper season sowed with wheat, was subsequently sold from him while growing in the ground, but privileged through the sympathy of a kind purchaser to reap and thresh ouf, reserving one-third of the grain for such labor. The season for gathering arrived, but having no team to collect the sheaves in the field and afterwards deposit them in his barn, he applied to his rich and younger brother for the loan of his team, who granted the request, on condition that he would first help him to finish his (younger brother's) harvest, which would take about four hours. No other alternative, the proposition was accepted, and the elder mounting a wagon drawn by two fine, noble horses, received the sheaves as pitched on by the younger; in the course of which labor the poor brother asked the other, how or whence arose such a difference in the prosperity of their temporal affairs, and received the following answer: "I intend personally, this afternoon, to assist you in gathering in your small crop of grain, which when finished shall clearly demonstrate the decline of your property."

It is a universal custom in the grain or hay harvests, he who pitches on the wagon is entitled to receive in the mow. According to this arrangement, after the elder brother had pitched up his last sheaf, he was requested by the younger to come up and see how the grain was stored, which being complied with, he found to his utter astonishment that there was not a sheaf in the barn. The elder passionately inquired where it was, whereupon the younger pleasingly replied, "brother, suffer not anger on this occasion to dwell in your bosom, all loss which my present course may occasion, shall be repaired by more than double in value."

"This morning when you applied for my assistance

you accompanied your request by expressing a surprise that as we had shared alike in patrimony, and were equally industrious, still, as I advanced in worldly wealth you grew poorer. I then promised to assign the true cause and to give this afternoon an ocular demonstration. "As fast as you pitched up the sheaves I cast them out at the back window, and as fast as you bring in at the front door your wife wastes or casts it out at the back door. Many other reasons I could assign for the retrograde movements in your temporal affairs, one of which I discovered in passing, this afternoon, in your swill barrel several large pieces of bread and slices of meat were floating, whereas my wife saves all her stale bread (if wheat) for pudding, and although we do not scant our children, still, when they ask for bread and take more than they can, at the same time, prudently eat, instead of throwing their fragments into the swill barrel they are carefully preserved and laid before that child for its next meal; so in any other article of food, while the unhandled. meat of the dinner table is placed away in a safe or pantry, appearing again at tea, in small slices as a relish, or else hashed next morning, not unfrequently with an underlaying of toasted bread. Our beverage, pure cold water, one of God's greatest and best gifts to man.

'Which always prepares us to meditate better,
And prepares our souls for better.

Regions than here.'

"Every member of our family has a regular fixed time in which to discharge his, or her, respective duties, whether arising from eating, sleeping, reading, recreation, or manual labor.

"While the merry whistle is heard in the fields, so in my house is the buzzing spinning-wheel; hence my granaries are richly stored, and my dwelling chambers present pile upon pile of homespun blankets and wearing apparel of the same kind.

"In connexion with early rising and exercise in the open air, our tables are almost entirely free from dainties which follow in the train of pastry, &c., and are not only expensive, but many articles in their very nature indigestible, and thereby enervating, instead of invigorating and strengthening, the human system.

"Hence we are all healthy, cheerful, and robust,

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