I am aware that any insinuation of this kind read at the sewing-circle would bring a storm about my head at once. “What! slight the ironing?” “What! not scour the tin?” “What! not keep the stove bright?” Well, they would certainly have right on their side; and I should have, more certainly, right on my side. My side being, that, through all the toil and striving, something higher shall be kept in view, and that this something higher shall not be forever shoved aside for those other things lower. I suppose the Society for the Enlightenment of Mothers will put the case somewhat in this way,-- “As woman has mind, it may be inferred that to cultivate her mind should be one special object of woman’s life. That is one statement. Then, to add another, nothing in the world can be more precious than a little child. It is no light responsibility, that of giving the first direction to an immortal soul. Woman, in assuming a duty so sacred, should feel that its claims rank above all others; that it demands of her her very best. “A mother, then, should aim at two special duties; namely, to cultivate her mind, and to rightly train her children. Though these two are stated separately, the last really includes the first, since, to rightly train her children, a mother needs to have every mental faculty under cultivation. This implies study, reflection, deliberation; and these imply time. ‘We have no time,’ say these mothers,--‘no time for books, no time to think, no time to spend with our children.’ Which is not true, because they have all the time there is, but feel bound to use it for other purposes.” Now, here is where the Society for the Diffusion of Time among Mothers shall take up the work, and show how, by the application of its grand principle of Simplification to cooking and to dress, the inferior duties can be made to deliver up their “lion’s share” of time. Statistical writers in “The Columbian Simplifier” shall state the exact number of rolling-pin strokes required by an average family in a year, and the amount of time said strokes will consume, for the purpose of calculating how many hours and minutes are thus stolen from the two special objects. The same statistical writer, for a similar purpose, shall give, in figures, the stitches and minutes required to flounce an average family for a year. Comic writers will hold up to ridicule, in “The Simplifier,” elaborate passages from the cook-book, thus handing them down to posterity, by whom they will be considered as relics of a barbarous age. Among these passages will no doubt be this one concerning MINCE-PIES. “Ten pounds of meat, three pounds of suet, one of currants, three of sugar, five of apple, four of raisins, one of citron, a pint of sirup of preserved fruit, a quart of wine, salt, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, the juice and pulp of a lemon, the rind chopped fine.” [Illustration]