American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science;: Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian HomesStowe, Harriet Beecher
Religion
American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science;: Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Home economics
Another reason for early rising is, that it is indispensable to a
systematic and well-regulated family. At whatever hour the parents
retire, children and domestics, wearied by play or labor, must retire
early. Children usually awake with the dawn of light, and commence
their play, while domestics usually prefer the freshness of morning
for their labors. If, then, the parents rise at a late hour, they
either induce a habit of protracting sleep in their children and
domestics, or else the family are up, and at their pursuits, while
their supervisors are in bed.
Any woman who asserts that her children and domestics, in the first
hours of day, when their spirits are freshest, will be as well regulated
without her presence as with it, confesses that which surely is little
for her credit. It is believed that any candid woman, whatever may be
her excuse for late rising, will concede that if she could rise early
it would be for the advantage of her family. A late breakfast puts
back the work, through the whole day, for every member of a family;
and if the parents thus occasion the loss of an hour or two to each
individual who, but for their delay in the morning, would be usefully
employed, they alone are responsible for all this waste of time.
But the practice of early rising has a relation to the general interests
of the social community, as well as to that of each distinct family.
All that great portion of the community who are employed in business
and labor find it needful to rise early; and all their hours of meals,
and their appointments for business or pleasure, must be accommodated
to these arrangements. Now, if a small portion of the community
establish very different hours, it makes a kind of jostling in all the
concerns and interests of society. The various appointments for the
public, such as meetings, schools, and business hours, must be
accommodated to the mass, and not to individuals. The few, then, who
establish domestic habits at variance with the majority, are either
constantly interrupted in their own arrangements, or else are
interfering with the rights and interests of others. This is exemplified
in the case of schools. In families where late rising is practiced,
either hurry, irregularity, and neglect are engendered in the family,
or else the interests of the school, and thus of the community, are
sacrificed. In this, and many other matters, it can be shown that the
well-being of the bulk of the people is, to a greater or less extent,
impaired by this self-indulgent practice. Let any teacher select the
unpunctual scholars--a class who most seriously interfere with the
interests of the school--and let men of business select those who cause
them most waste of time and vexation, by unpunctuality; and it will
be found that they are generally among the late risers, and rarely
among those who rise early. Thus, late rising not only injures the
person and family which indulge in it, but interferes with the rights
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