, and took all the care of the poultry. They were
children, whose parents could afford to hire servants to do this, but
who chose to have their children grow up healthy and industrious, while
proper instruction, system, and encouragement, made these services
rather a pleasure, than otherwise, to the children.

Some parents pay their children for such services; but this is
hazardous, as tending to make them feel that they are not bound to 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 her special charge. She tended it, made and mended its clothes