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

be helpful without pay, and also as tending to produce a hoarding, money-making spirit. But, where children have no hoarding propensities, and need to acquire a sense of the value of property, it may be well to let them earn money, for some extra services, rather as a favor. When this is done, they should be taught to spend it for others, as well as for themselves; and in this way, a generous and liberal spirit will be cultivated. There are some mothers, who take pains to teach their boys most of the domestic arts, which their sisters learn. The writer has seen boys, mending their own garments, and aiding their mother or sisters in the kitchen, with great skill and adroitness; and at an early age, they usually very much relish joining in such occupations. The sons of such mothers, in their college life, or in roaming about the world, or in nursing a sick wife or infant, find occasion to bless the forethought and kindness, which prepared them for such emergencies. Few things are in worse taste, than for a man needlessly to busy himself in women's work; and yet a man never appears in a more interesting attitude, than when, by skill in such matters, he can save a mother or wife from care and suffering. The more a boy is taught to use his hands, in every variety of domestic employment, the more his faculties, both of mind and body, are developed; for mechanical pursuits exercise the intellect, as well as the hands. The early training of New-England boys, in which they turn their hand to almost every thing, is one great reason of the quick perceptions, versatility of mind, and mechanical skill, for which that portion of our Countrymen is distinguished. The writer has known one mode of systematizing the aid of the older children in a family, which, in some cases of very large families, it may be well to imitate. In the case referred to, when the oldest daughter was eight or nine years old, an infant sister was given to her, as