I wish--how fervently and how frequently, I dare not pretend to say--that _method_, a wise and just system of duty and recreation, could be made the chief earthly law of every household. Let there not only be “a place for every thing and every thing in its place,” but a time for every thing, and let every thing be done in its season. When I see the mistress of a family toiling and worried from morning until night, pulled a dozen different ways at once, by as many duties, all of apparently equal importance, driving herself and servants, wearying her husband by incessant complaints, and dragging, rather than bringing up her children, I wonder not that American women break down so early, but at the tenacity of life that enables them to endure their load for a single year. The clever writer of an article, entitled “A Spasm of Sense,” published not long since, in one of our most clever monthlies, finds the cause of the lamentable condition of so many a domestic establishment in the superabundance of olive-plants that crowd American nurseries. From my different standpoint, I am inclined to believe the trouble to be, not that there are too many babies, but that there are not more wise and capable mothers. I know a lady who was, when she married, a delicate, beautiful girl, the petted favorite of a large circle of admiring friends. The seventh anniversary of her wedding-day saw her the mother of five children. Acquaintances, who only heard of this rapid increase of cares, shook mournful heads and drew pitying sighs, between contemptuous smiles. “What a change!”