The writer became early convinced that this evil results mainly from the fact, that young girls, especially in the more wealthy classes, _are not trained for their profession_. In early life, they go through a course of school training which results in great debility of constitution, while, at the same time, their physical and domestic education is almost wholly neglected. Thus they enter on their most arduous and sacred duties so inexperienced and uninformed, and with so little muscular and nervous strength, that probably there is not _one chance in ten_, that young women of the present day, will pass through the first years of married life without such prostration of health and spirits as makes life a burden to themselves, and, it is to be feared, such as seriously interrupts the confidence and happiness of married life. The measure which, more than any other, would tend to remedy this evil, would be to place _domestic economy_ on an equality with the other sciences in female schools. This should be done because it _can_ be properly and systematically taught (not _practically_, but as a _science_), as much so as _political economy_ or _moral science_, or any other branch of study; because it embraces knowledge, which will be needed by young women at all times and in all places; because this science can never be _properly_ taught until it is made a branch of _study_; and because this method will secure a dignity and importance in the estimation of young girls, which can never be accorded while they perceive their teachers and parents practically attaching more value to every other department of science than this. When young ladies are taught the construction of their own bodies, and all the causes in domestic life which tend to weaken the constitution; when they are taught rightly to appreciate and learn the most convenient and economical modes of performing all family duties, and of employing time and money; and when they perceive the true estimate accorded to these things by teachers and friends, the grand cause of this evil will be removed. Women will be trained to secure, as of first importance, a strong and healthy constitution, and all those rules of thrift and economy that will make domestic duty easy and pleasant. To promote this object, the writer prepared this volume as a _text-book_ for female schools. It has been examined by the Massachusetts Board of Education, and been deemed worthy by them to be admitted as a part of the Massachusetts School Library. It has also been adopted as a text-book in some of our largest and most popular female schools, both at the East and West. The following, from the pen of Mr. George B. Emmerson, one of the most popular and successful teachers in our country, who has introduced this work as a text-book in his own school, will exhibit the opinion of one who has formed his judgment from experience in the use of the work: