A Treatise on Domestic Economy; For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at SchoolBeecher, Catharine Esther
General
A Treatise on Domestic Economy; For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School
Beecher, Catharine Esther
Home economics
It will be wise for those parents, who find little time to attend to
their children, or to seek amusement and enjoyment in the domestic and
social circle, because their time is so much occupied with public cares
or benevolent objects, to inquire, whether their first duty is not to
train up their own families, to be useful members of society. A man, who
neglects the mind and morals of his children, to take care of the
public, is in great danger of coming under a similar condemnation, to
that of him, who, neglecting to provide for his own household, has
"denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel."
There are husbands and fathers, who conscientiously subtract time from
their business, to spend at home, in reading with their wives and
children, and in domestic amusements which at once refresh and improve.
The children of such parents will grow up with a love of home and
kindred, which will be the greatest safeguard against future
temptations, as well as the purest source of earthly enjoyment.
There are families, also, who make it a definite object to keep up
family attachments, after the children are scattered abroad; and, in
some cases, secure the means for doing this, by saving money, which
would otherwise have been spent for superfluities of food or dress. Some
families have adopted, for this end, a practice, which if widely
imitated, would be productive of extensive benefit. The method is this.
On the first day of each month, some member of the family, at each
extreme point of dispersion, takes a folio sheet, and fills a part of a
page. This is sealed and mailed to the next family, who read it, add
another contribution, and then mail it to the next. Thus the family
circular, once a month, goes from each extreme, to all the members of a
widely-dispersed family, and each member becomes a sharer in the joys,
sorrows, plans, and pursuits, of all the rest. At the same time,
frequent family meetings are sought; and the expense, thus incurred, is
cheerfully met by retrenchments in other directions. The sacrifice of
some unnecessary physical indulgence, (such, for instance, as the use of
tea and coffee,) will often purchase many social and domestic
enjoyments, a thousand times more elevating and delightful, than the
retrenched luxury.
There is no social duty, which the Supreme Lawgiver more strenuously
urges, than hospitality and kindness to strangers, who are classed with
the widow and the fatherless, as the special objects of Divine
tenderness. There are some reasons, why this duty peculiarly demands
attention from the American people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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