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

cares of the family state, all at once came upon this young and inexperienced schoolgirl. Again; a young lady went to reside with a married sister, in a distant State. While on this visit, the elder sister died, and there was no one but this young lady to fill the vacant place, and assume all the cares of the nursery, parlor, and kitchen. Again; a pupil of the writer, at the end of her schooldays, married, and removed to the West. She was an entire novice in all domestic matters; an utter stranger in the place to which she removed. In a year, she became a mother, and _her health failed_; while, for most of the time, she had no domestics, at all, or only Irish or Germans, who scarcely knew even the names, or the uses, of many cooking utensils. She was treated with politeness by her neighbors, and wished to return their civilities; but how could this young and delicate creature, who had spent all her life at school, or in visiting and amusement, take care of her infant, attend to her cooking, washing, ironing, and baking, the concerns of her parlor, chambers, kitchen, and cellar, and yet visit and receive company? If there is any thing that would make a kindly heart ache, with sorrow and sympathy, it would be to see so young, so amiable, so helpless a martyr to the mistaken system of female education now prevalent. "I have the kindest of husbands," said the young wife, after her narrative of sufferings, "and I never regretted my marriage; but, since this babe was born, I have never had a single waking hour of freedom from anxiety and care. O! how little young girls know what is before them, when they enter married life!" Let the mother or teacher, whose eye may rest on these lines, ask herself, if there is no cause for fear that the young objects of her care may be thrown into similar emergencies, where they may need a kind of preparation, which as yet has been withheld. Another reason for introducing