Let any
sensible woman, who has had experience of shop and factory life,
recall to her mind the ways and manners in which young girls grow up
who leave a father's roof for a crowded boarding-house, without any
supervision of matron or mother, and ask whether this is the best
school for training young American wives and mothers.

"Doubtless there are discreet and thoughtful women who, amid all these
difficulties, do keep up thrifty, womanly habits, but they do it by an
effort greater than the majority of girls are willing to make, and
greater than they ought to make. To sew or read or study after ten
hours of factory or shop work is a further drain on the nervous powers
which no woman can long endure without exhaustion.

"When the time arrives that such a girl comes to a house of her own,
she comes to it as unskilled in all household lore, with muscles as
incapable of domestic labor and nerves as sensitive, as if she had
been leading the most luxurious, do-nothing, fashionable life. How
different would be her preparation, had the forming years of her life
been spent in the labors of a family! I know at this moment a lady at
the head of a rich country establishment, filling her station in
society with dignity and honor, who gained her domestic education in a
kitchen in our vicinity. She was the daughter of a small farmer, and
when the time came for her to be earning her living, her parents
wisely thought it far better that she should gain it in a way which
would at the same time establish her health and fit her for her own
future home. In a cheerful, light, airy kitchen, which was kept so
tidy always as to be an attractive sitting-room, she and another young
country girl were trained up in the best of domestic economies by a
mistress who looked well to the ways of her household, till at length
they married from the house with honor, and went to practice in homes
of their own the lessons they had learned in the home of another.
Formerly, in New England, such instances were not uncommon; would that
they might become so again!"

"The fact is," said my wife, "the places which the daughters of
American farmers used to occupy in our families are now taken by young
girls from the families of small farmers in Ireland. They are
respectable, tidy, healthy, and capable of being taught. A good
mistress, who is reasonable and liberal in her treatment, is able to
make them fixtures. They get good wages, and have few expenses. They