A Treatise on Domestic Economy; For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School

she will find, that much, which she calls "domestic duties," and which prevent her attention to intellectual, benevolent, and religious, objects, should be called by a very different name. No woman has a right to give up attention to the higher interests of herself and others, for the ornaments of taste, or the gratification of the palate. To a certain extent, these lower objects are lawful and desirable; but, when they intrude on nobler interests, they become selfish and degrading. Every woman, then, when employing her hands, in ornamenting her person, her children, or her house, ought to calculate, whether she has devoted _as much_ time, to the intellectual and moral wants of herself and others. If she has not, she may know that she is doing wrong, and that her system, for apportioning her time and pursuits, should be altered. Some persons, endeavor to systematize their pursuits, by apportioning them to particular hours of each day. For example, a certain period before breakfast, is given to devotional duties; after breakfast, certain hours are devoted to exercise and domestic employments; other hours, to sewing, or reading, or visiting; and others, to benevolent duties. But, in most cases, it is more difficult to systematize the hours of each day, than it is to secure some regular division of the week. In regard to the minutiae of domestic arrangements, the writer has known the following methods to be adopted. _Monday_, with some of the best housekeepers, is devoted to preparing for the labors of the week. Any extra cooking, the purchasing of articles to be used during the week, the assorting of clothes for the wash, and mending such as would be injured without;--these, and similar items, belong to this day. _Tuesday_ is devoted to washing, and _Wednesday_ to ironing. On _Thursday_, the ironing is finished off, the clothes are folded and put away, and all articles, which need mending, are put in the mending basket, and attended to. _Friday_ is devoted to sweeping and housecleaning. On _Saturday_, and especially the last Saturday of every month, every department is put in order;