housewife's department. 357 



gogues; because, in our country, the noble office of instructor is so badly paid 

 and so little respected. But in the true sense of the word education — in the lio^ht 

 in which it is especially incumbent on every parent to view it — all Nature is but 

 one great school-house, and every sense a teacher. Yet above all places, the 

 moral influence exists at home — at the fireside — in the examples and the conver- 

 sation of parents. What emanates from them, is received with implicit con- 

 fidence, and carries with it the force of truthful authority. Hence the wisdom 

 of Solomon's injunction, " train up a child in the Avay he should go, and when 

 he is old he will not depart from it." Neglecting this injunction the consequence 

 follows, that " He visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third 

 and fourth generation " — for there is no knowing through how many generations 

 a false principle in morals or vicious example may go down. There is no limit 

 in fact to the power of education. It makes the bear dance. While of all the 

 blessings that Providence can bestow or education improve, none can exceed that 

 of a cheerful temper. Of such an one, Hope is ever the inseparable companion, 

 ready to throw a ray of sunshine over the most sombre pictures of life, to miti- 

 gate adversity, and to make prosperity doubly prosperous. It may be that this is 

 the gift of Nature, but all her gifts are improvable, and invite the exercise of 

 reason and judgment. As plants, not indigenous, have been made by the art and 

 diligence of the horticulturist to flourish in soils not their own, so in the youth- 

 ful mind and bosom the parent may plant the seeds, not only of resignation, but 

 of contentment and cheerfulness under the sorest afflictions, the visitations of 

 poverty and disease, and the loss of our dearest relatives. As a moral may be 

 drawn from almost everything around us, let us point you, fair readers, to the 

 example of your own little canary — a hopeless prisoner for life ! Yet admire his 

 vivacity, and listen, how he beguiles his endless confinement with his various 

 but endless song. As the great naturalist Buffon has said of him — " The Night- 

 ingale is the chantressof the woods, the Canary is the musician of the chamber. 

 Its education is easy ; we rear it with pleasure because we are able to instruct it. 

 It leaves the melody of its own natural note, to listen to the melody of our voices 

 and instruments. It applauds, it accompanies us and repays the pleasure it re- 

 ceives with interest. It sings at all seasons, cheers us in the dullest weather, 

 and adds to our happiness, by amusing the young and delighting the recluse, 

 charming the tediousness of the cloister, and gladdening the soul of the inno- 

 cent and captive." What an example is here set by one of the least and most en- 

 gaging of the feathered creation ! And how often have all of us seen gayety and 

 innocence thus combined in one or more lively and amiable members of a familv, 

 the ' life and soul,' as they are called, of the house in which they dwell ! Such 

 a temper is to be valued, as it gladdens its possessor and all around, beyond 

 all price. The mines of Golconda contain nothing so precious. It deserves the 

 name bestowed on a new plant in Europe, called the " gold of pleasure." 



But, fair readers, it is time to look for something ofwhat is now days called prac- 

 tical, lest he whose judgment is always to be consulted should say "well, in all 

 this, what has he told you that is useful for the housewife, in her chicken bonnet 

 and apron, with her bunch or basket of keys in her hand ?" True enough, so let 

 us turn to our receipt hoolc. Not one stereotyped and printed by steam and for 

 sale by the thousand, and whose merit consists in the exactness of its alpha- 

 betical arrangement and the size of its volume ; but one of your real honest 

 manuscript treasures, containing the very essence and quintessence, the quinine 

 of good housewifery, as it is practiced in the good Old Thirteen, where ladies 



(677) 



