To parents I would say with Fowler: “By all the value of splendid children over poor or none, should all other interests be subservient to maternity, not it to them. Brush aside, like cobwebs, pecuniary, ambitional, and all other ends, and make it imperious lord over all. Your family may better live on bread and water, and you have splendid children, than do all this work, and have ill-natured, sickly ones. What are stylish rooms and furniture, many and high-seasoned dishes, in comparison with a sweet and healthful child?... Your child-rearing mission is your one duty. Do this in the very best manner possible, but _make all else secondary_. See that the prospective mothers want nothing. They deserve, and, as society advances, will yet receive universal sympathy, along with the utmost care and affection.” On account of the foregoing remarks, do not suppose that an idle, dependent life is counseled. By no means. A woman in pregnancy, as at other times, should be actively employed, and if it can be in some absorbing, congenial, lucrative work, so much the better. It is the incessant nothings of woman’s work which, while accomplishing so little, yet wear out the nerves, and exhaust the patience. “Labor is life! ’Tis the still water faileth! Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth! Keep the watch wound, or the dark rust assaileth; Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon. Labor is glory! The flying cloud lightens: Only the waving wing changes and brightens, Idle hearts only the dark future frightens. Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in tune!” A lady well known to a large circle of friends as a successful writer and business woman, the mother of a large family of sons and daughters, who, at the age of forty-five is the personification of health and energy, had this remarkable experience: During the period preceding the birth of her fourth child, pecuniary misfortune, and the ill-health of her husband, combined to make it necessary for her to carry on his business. She was obliged to walk nearly two miles every day to his store, where she staid all day absorbingly engaged in the duties of looking after the details of sales, keeping the books, accounts, etc., after which day’s work she walked back to her home. Everybody said Mrs. B. would surely break down, but instead of doing so she preserved the most vigorous health, and experienced none of the sick and nervous feelings usually incidental to pregnancy. When the child was born, the extraordinary circumstance that its birth was attended with scarcely any pain, led the physician and the lady herself to inquire what might be the cause of such a happy departure from the usual rule.