THE COMMON THINGS OF EVERY-DAY LIFE. CHAPTER I. Introductory remarks on Common Things-The dangers of ignorance-Household economy-The wife's duty-ExpenditureServants-The arrangement of a well-spent day-Morning calls. Ir appears to have suddenly dawned upon the world that the long-despised knowledge of Common Things ought to be acquired, by females especially, in all ranks of life, in order to increase the comfort and enjoyment of home. By common things, we mean all those small matters that bear, directly or indirectly, on the comfort of social life; the thousand minor duties, so little understood, so loosely fulfilled, or so unwisely despised, which tend to the home happiness of families, and raise and purify the moral character. It is the perfect knowledge of these things, prudently used, and accompanied by good temper, firm principles, and sound piety, that renders an English home, beyond all other places, "Supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest!" Fashion, indolence, and fastidious refinement, have, for the last half-century, been busy in banishing from the world every accomplishment on which our grand B 2 HOUSEHOLD ECONOMY AND THE mothers prided themselves, and which ought truly to form important items in female education. The higher classes, satisfied with the cultivation of those charming talents which ornament society, employed in more ambitious studies, or engaged in the daily pursuit of pleasure, scoff at the important knowledge of the things of every-day life. The middle classes, to whom this branch of knowledge should be most practically useful, are really or affectedly ignorant of it, and at all events are unpardonably negligent in turning it to good account. The lower orders, having their reasoning faculties too frequently undeveloped in youth, or crushed by poverty and a life of labour, usually live careless of to-morrow, with no energy of mind, prudence, or economy. To the woman who has never been imbued with the first principles of this necessary knowledge, it is difficult to communicate it by lesson or lecture like any other science. It is an experimental philosophy, acquired by using common sense in every act, word, or view of life. We frequently hear of a lady, whose clothes have caught fire, rushing into the open air to call for assistance, and by this imprudence falling a victim, as the air necessarily increases the flames. A knowledge of common things, with the presence of mind to make use of her knowledge, would have taught her to lie down on the carpet and roll over to extinguish the flames, or with courage and promptness to envelope herself in a hearth-rug, table-cover, or any woollen article at hand. We have heard of a poor man who, in using an axe, severed an artery in the wrist: terrified at the flow of blood, his wife, in her distraction or in her ignorance, tried to check it by using cold water and common styptics, and tied up the wound loosely with linen rags, instead of binding the arm tightly with a ligature above the cut, till medical assistance could be obtained. In |