FOR the last two years we have occupied a corner in “The Christian Union” with the following brief articles, and from week to week endeavored to bring to its readers something useful and practical. We have reviewed the daily labors indispensable to all classes of homes, giving whatever suggestions or criticisms seemed to us most needed or desirable, not only as regards the manual labor of a household, but also the actions, motives, and principles which build up and secure the happiness of a family; or which, falsely understood and neglected, must lay the foundation for misery and sin. We have been requested by many of our readers to gather these _talks_ together, for the more convenient use of those for whom they were written, namely, _young housekeepers_, who, marrying before their domestic education has received sufficient attention, daily find many stumbling-blocks in their way, which haply a word fitly spoken might remove. Where so much has been written in the way of “Advice to Young Housekeepers,” “Household Guides,” etc., it would seem superfluous to venture on this well-worn track, did it not lead to a portion of general education too little thought of, where “line upon line and precept upon precept” are peculiarly needed. The home education of our girls is often sadly neglected. Indulgent mothers, who have kept their daughters in school from earliest childhood, think it would be cruel to ask that any part of their vacation should be usefully employed. It must all be given to relaxation and amusement, leaving the knowledge of the homely household duties which would enable them to superintend and adorn a happy home to be learned after they have been “graduated.” Yet how many young girls pass from the seminary at once into married life, and on their first entrance into society are transformed from simple school-girls into wives and housekeepers! If no part of their child-life was devoted to those lessons, which none should be able to teach so kindly and so thoroughly as a mother, what is the result? The _home_ which the lover dreamed of, proves dark and comfortless, and the bride is too often transformed into the heartless devotee of fashion, instead of the companion and helpmeet God designed a wife to be. Young ladies would soon discover the richer life there is in one’s own home, if they were early initiated into an intimate knowledge of the whole routine of home duties and household mysteries, so that when they shall be exalted to the dignity of the mistress of a house, they can with good judgment and intelligence direct their servants, or independently perform the labor of a family, easily and methodically, with their own hands. With such knowledge, and the ability to execute, they can greatly augment domestic happiness and add new lustre to their charms as companion and friend.