Instances of marked talent or decided turn for some particular line of study should be furthered and fostered to the utmost, consistently with the possibility that after all the vocation may not be carried into effect; but women are really more valuable, and more likely to be happy, in what it is old-fashioned to call the sphere of a home. And this is best prepared for by home training; which does not mean being pushed aside so as to be out of the way, and shut up in the nursery or school-room, but enjoying the companionship of a judicious and sensible mother, and the freedom of the house--where the child will be taught to behave herself properly, and be useful and obliging; where she will have regular hours of study with her mother, her governess, or at school, and yet have opportunities of seeing how everything is managed in the kitchen and throughout the house, being allowed occasionally to do some little thing herself, and so acquire some of the needful practice; where she can be taught needlework and the proper use of many tools; learn to carve, to cut bread and butter, to help dishes neatly at table, and gain a knowledge of gardening and green-house culture. Children should be permitted to look on at the proceedings of all workmen employed in or out of the house: the glazier, gasfitter, gardener, carpet-stretcher, carpenter, locksmith, and piano-tuner; the exceptions being the dustman and the sweep, because of the dirt. How much money might be saved in a house if people understood the use of a few tools, the construction of a few fittings, or could take a piano to pieces and tune it. If a bell-wire is broken, a man is sent for; he charges half a day's work and some materials, and generally makes a little bit of work for some other tradesman, whereas a knowledge of how to unscrew and take off the bell-cover would often enable a piece of copper wire to be joined, and the bell set in order. How often people fail to force down a window whose weights are just over-lapping, where a blow with a mallet on the shutterbox would have shaken them into their places; or, failing that, the box containing the sash-weights might be opened by taking off the beading near the window-sash, the cords and weights put straight, and the beading replaced by hammering the brads. But no; we send for a man. Our water-pipes burst in winter, because during a hard frost we have not taken the precaution to turn the taps so that a few drops may pass to relieve the pressure in thawing. We cannot even frame and hang up a picture when we have painted it, or cover a chair with the piece of needlework we have made. We do not know how to renew the cord of a spring blind, nor many a little thing besides; and yet any one who keeps a house in order knows how constantly these things are recurring, and what a source of expense they are.