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

at sight, the endless variety of music which is prepared. And if parents of wealth would take pains to have teachers qualified for the purpose, as they may be at the Boston Academy, and other similar institutions, who should teach all the young children in the community, much would be done for the happiness and elevation of the rising generation. This is an amusement, which children relish, in the highest degree; and which they can enjoy, at home, in the fields, and in visits abroad. Another domestic amusement, is, the collecting of shells, plants, and specimens in geology and mineralogy, for the formation of cabinets. If intelligent parents would procure the simpler works which have been prepared for the young, and study them, with their children, a _taste_ for such recreations would soon be developed. The writer has seen young boys, of eight and ten years of age, gathering and cleaning shells from rivers, and collecting plants, and mineralogical specimens, with a delight, bordering on ecstasy; and there are few, if any, who, by proper influences, would not find this a source of ceaseless delight and improvement. Another resource, for family diversion, is to be found in the various games played by children, and in which the joining of older members of the family is always a great advantage to both parties. All medical men unite, in declaring that nothing is more beneficial to health, than hearty laughter; and surely our benevolent Creator would not have provided risibles, and made it a source of health and enjoyment to use them, if it were a sin so to do. There has been a tendency to asceticism, on this subject, which needs to be removed. Such commands, as forbid _foolish_ laughing and jesting, "_which are not convenient_;" and which forbid all idle words, and vain conversation, cannot apply to any thing, except what is foolish, vain, and useless. But jokes, laughter, and sports, when used in such a degree as tends only to promote health, social feelings, and happiness, are neither vain, foolish, nor "not convenient." It is the excess of these