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American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science;

by Catharine Esther Beecher · English · Gutenberg #6598 · 899,459 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science;

Author: Catharine Esther Beecher
        Harriet Beecher Stowe


        
Release date: September 1, 2004 [eBook #6598]
                Most recently updated: December 29, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6598

Credits: Produced by Steve Schulze, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMERICAN WOMAN'S HOME: OR, PRINCIPLES OF DOMESTIC SCIENCE; ***




Produced by Steve Schulze, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.





AMERICAN WOMAN'S HOME: OR, PRINCIPLES OF DOMESTIC SCIENCE;


BEING A GUIDE TO THE FORMATION AND MAINTENANCE OF ECONOMICAL,
HEALTHFUL, BEAUTIFUL, AND CHRISTIAN HOMES.

BY CATHERINE E. BEECHER AND HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA, IN WHOSE HANDS REST THE REAL DESTINIES OF
THE REPUBLIC, AS MOULDED BY THE EARLY TRAINING AND PRESERVED AMID
THE MATURER INFLUENCES OF HOME, THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY
INSCRIBED.




TABLE OF CONTENTS.

_INTRODUCTION._

The chief cause of woman's disabilities and sufferings, that women are
not trained, as men are, for their peculiar duties--Aim of this volume
to elevate the honor and remuneration of domestic employment--Woman's
duties, and her utter lack of training for them--Qualifications of the
writers of this volume to teach the matters proposed--Experience and
study of woman's work--Conviction of the dignity and importance of
it--The great social and moral power in her keeping--The principles
and teachings of Jesus Christ the true basis of woman's rights and
duties.

I.

_THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY._

Object of the Family State--Duty of the elder and stronger to raise
the younger, weaker, and more ignorant to an equality of
advantages--Discipline of the family--The example of Christ one of
self-sacrifice as man's elder brother--His assumption of a low
estate--His manual labor--His trade--Woman the chief minister of the
family estate--Man the out-door laborer and provider--Labor and
self-denial in the mutual relations of home-life, honorable, healthful,
economical, enjoyable, and Christian.

II.

_A CHRISTIAN HOUSE._

True wisdom in building a home--Necessity of economizing time, labor,
and expense, by the close packing of conveniences--Plan of a model
cottage--Proportions--Piazzas--Entry--Stairs and landings--Large
room--Movable Screen--Convenient bedsteads--A good mattress--A cheap
and convenient ottoman--Kitchen and stove-room--The stove-room and
its arrangements--Second or attic story--Closets, corner
dressing-tables, windows, balconies, water and earth-closets, shoe-bag,
piece-bag--Basement, closets, refrigerator, washtubs,
etc.--Laundry--General wood-work--Conservatories-Average estimate of
cost.

III.

_A HEALTHFUL HOME._

Household murder--Poisoning and starvation the inevitable result of
bad air in public halls and private homes--Good air as needful as good
food--Structure and operations of the lungs and their capillaries and
air-cells--How people in a confined room will deprive the air of oxygen
and overload it with refuse carbonic acid-Starvation of the living
body deprived of oxygen--The skin and its twenty-eight miles of
perspiratory tubes--Reciprocal action of plants and animals--Historical
examples of foul-air poisoning--Outward effects of habitual breathing
of bad air--Quotations from scientific authorities.

IV.

_SCIENTIFIC DOMESTIC VENTILATION._

An open fireplace secures due ventilation--Evils of substituting
air-tight stoves and furnace heating--Tendency of warm air to rise and
of cool air to sink--Ventilation of mines--Ignorance of architects--Poor
ventilation in most houses--Mode of ventilating laboratories--Creation
of a current of warm air in a flue open at top and bottom of the
room--Flue to be built into chimney: method of utilizing it.

V. STOVES, FURNACES, AND CHIMNEYS.

The general properties of heat, conduction, convection, radiation,
reflection--Cooking done by radiation the simplest but most wasteful
mode: by convection (as in stoves and furnaces) the cheapest--The
range--The model cooking-stove--Interior arrangements and
principles--Contrivances for economizing heat, labor, time, fuel,
trouble, and expense--Its durability, simplicity, etc.--Chimneys: why
they smoke and how to cure them--Furnaces: the dryness of their
heat--Necessity of moisture in warm air--How to obtain and regulate it.

VI.

_HOME DECORATION._

Significance of beauty in making home attractive and useful in
education--Exemplification of economical and tasteful furniture--The
carpet, lounge, lambrequins, curtains, ottomans, easy-chair,
centre-table--Money left for pictures--Chromes--Pretty frames--
Engravings--Statuettes--Educatory influence of works of art--Natural
adornments--Materials in the woods and fields--Parlor-gardens--Hanging
baskets--Fern-shields--Ivy, its beauty and tractableness--Window, with
flowers, vines, and pretty plants--Rustic stand for flowers--Ward's
case--How to make it economically--Bowls and vases of rustic work for
growing plants--Ferns, how and when to gather them--General remarks.

VII.

_THE CARE OF HEALTH._

Importance of some knowledge of the body and its needs--Fearful
responsibility of entering upon domestic duties in ignorance--The
fundamental vital principle--Cell-life--Wonders of the microscope
--Cell-multiplication--Constant interplay of decay and growth necessary
to life--The red and white cells of the blood--Secreting and converting
power--The nervous system--The brain and the nerves--Structural
arrangement and functions--The ganglionic system--The nervous
fluid--Necessity of properly apportioned exercise to nerves of sensation
and of motion--Evils of excessive or insufficient exercise--Equal
development of the whole.

VIII.

_DOMESTIC EXERCISE._

Connection of muscles and nerves--Microscopic cellular muscular
fibre--Its mode of action--Dependence on the nerves of voluntary and
involuntary motion--How exercise of muscles quickens circulation of
the blood which maintains all the processes of life--Dependence of
equilibrium upon proper muscular activity--Importance of securing
exercise that will interest the mind.

IX.

_HEALTHFUL FOOD._

Apportionment of elements in food: carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus,
calcium, iron, silicon, etc.--Large proportion of water in the human
body--Dr. Holmes on the interchange of death and life--Constituent
parts of a kernel of wheat--Comparison of different kinds of
food--General directions for diet--Hunger the proper guide and guard
of appetite--Evils of over-eating--Structure and operations of the
stomach--Times and quantity for eating--Stimulating and nourishing
food--Americans eat too much meat--Wholesome effects of Lenten
fasting--Matter and manner of eating--Causes of debilitation from
misuse of food.

X.

_HEALTHFUL DRINKS._

Stimulating drinks not necessary--Their immediate evil effects upon
the human body and tendency to grow into habitual desires--The
arguments for and against stimulus--Microscopic revelations of the
effects of alcohol on the cellular tissue of the brain--Opinions of
high scientific authorities against its use--No need of resorting to
stimulants either for refreshment, nourishment, or pleasure--Tea and
coffee an extensive cause of much nervous debility and suffering--Tend
to wasteful use in the kitchen--Are seldom agreeable at first to
children--Are dangerous to sensitive, nervous organizations, and should
be at least regulated--Hot drinks unwholesome, debilitating, and
destructive to teeth, throat, and stomach--Warm drinks agreeable and
not unhealthful--Cold drinks not to be too freely used during
meals--Drinking while eating always injurious to digestion.

XI.

_CLEANLINESS._

Health and comfort depend on cleanliness--Scientific treatment of the
skin, the most complicated organ of the body--Structure and arrangement
of the skin, its layers, cells, nerves, capillaries, absorbents,
oil-tubes, perspiration-tubes, etc.--The mucous membrane--Phlegm--The
secreting organs--The liver, kidney, pancreas, salivary and lachrymal
glands--Sympathetic connection of all the bodily organs--Intimate
connection of the skin with all the other organs--Proper mode of
treating the skin--Experiment showing happy effects of good treatment.

XII.

_CLOTHING._

Fashion attacks the very foundation of the body, the bones--Bones
composed of animal and mineral elements--General construction and
arrangement--Health of bones dependent on nourishment and exercise
of body--Spine--Distortions produced by tight dressing--Pressure of
interior organs upon each other and upon the bones--Displacement of
stomach, diaphragm, heart, intestines, and pelvic or lower organs--Women
liable to peculiar distresses--A well-fitted jacket to replace stiff
corsets, supporting the bust above and the under skirts below--Dressing
of young children--Safe for a healthy child to wear as little clothing
as will make it thoroughly comfortable--Nature the guide--The very
young and the very old need the most clothing.

XIII.

_GOOD COOKING._

Bad cooking prevalent in America-Abundance of excellent material--
General management of food here very wasteful and extravagant--Five
great departments of Cookery--_Bread_-What it should be, how to
spoil and how to make it--Different modes of aeration--Baking--Evils
of hot bread.--_Butter_-Contrast between the butter of America
and of European countries-How to make good butter.--_Meat_-Generally
used too newly killed--Lack of nicety in butcher's work--Economy of
French butchery, curving, and trimming--Modes of cooking meats--The
frying-pan--True way of using it--The French art of making delicious
soups and stews--_Vegetables_--Their number and variety in America--The
potato--How to cook it, a simple yet difficult operation--Roasted,
boiled, fried.--_Tea_--Warm table drinks generally--Coffee--Tea--
Chocolate.--_Confectionery_--Ornamental cookery--Pastry, ices, jellies.

XIV.

_EARLY RISING._ A virtue peculiarly American and democratic--In
aristocratic countries, labor considered degrading--The hours of
sunlight generally devoted to labor by the working classes and to sleep
by the indolent and wealthy--Sunlight necessary to health and growth
whether of vegetables or animals--Particularly needful for the
sick--Substitution of artificial light and heat, by night, a great
waste of money--Eight hours' sleep enough--Excessive sleep
debilitating--Early rising necessary to a well-regulated family, to
the amount of work to be done, to the community, to schools, and to
all classes in American society.

XV.

_DOMESTIC MANNERS._

Good manners the expression of benevolence in personal
intercourse--Serious defects in manners of the Americans-Causes of
abrupt manners to be found in American life--Want of clear
discrimination between men--Necessity for distinctions of superiority:
and subordination--Importance that young mothers should seriously
endeavor to remedy this defect, while educating their
children--Democratic principal of equal rights to be applied, not to
our own interests but to those of others--The same courtesy to be
extended to all classes--Necessary distinctions arising from mutual
relations to be observed--The strong to defer to the weak--Precedence
yielded by men to women in America--Good manners must be cultivated
in early life--Mutual relations of husband and wife--Parents and
children--The rearing of children to courtesy--De Tocqueville on
American manners.

XVI.

_GOOD TEMPER IN THE HOUSEKEEPER._

Easier for a household under the guidance of an equable temper in the
mistress---Dissatisfied looks and sharp tones destroy the comfort of
system, neatness, and economy--Considerations to aid the
housekeeper--Importance and dignity of her duties--Difficulties to
be overcome--Good policy to calculate beforehand upon the derangement
of well-arranged plans--Object of housekeeping, the comfort and
well-being of the family--The end should not be sacrificed to secure
the means--Possible to refrain from angry tones--Mild speech most
effective--Exemplification--Allowances to be made for servants and
children--Power of religion to impart dignity and importance to the
ordinary and petty details of domestic life.

XVII.

_HABITS OF SYSTEM AND ORDER._

Relative importance and difficulty of the duties a woman is called to
perform--Her duties not trivial--A habit of system and order
necessary--Right apportionment of time--General principles--
Christianity to be the foundation--Intellectual and social interests
to be preferred to gratification of taste or appetite--Neglect of
health a sin in the sight of God--Regular season of rest appointed by
the Creator--Divisions of time--Systematic arrangement of house articles
and other conveniences--Regular employment for each member of a
family--Children--Family work--Forming habits of system--Early rising
a very great aid--Due apportionment of time to the several duties.

XVIII.

_GIVING IN CHARITY._

No point of duty more difficult to fix by rule than charity--First
consideration--Object for which we are placed in this world--Self-
denying Benevolence.--Second consideration--Natural principles not to
be exterminated, but regulated and controlled.--Third
consideration--Superfluities sometimes proper, and sometimes
not--Fourth consideration--No rule of duty right for one and not for
all--The opposite of this principle tested--Some use of superfluities
necessary--Plan for keeping an account of necessities and
superfluities--Untoward results of our actions do not always prove
that we deserve blame--General principles to guide in deciding upon
objects of charity--Who are our neighbors--The most in need to be
first relieved--Not much need of charity for physical wants in this
country--Associated charities--Indiscriminate charity--Impropriety
of judging the charities of others.

XIX.

_ECONOMY OF TIME AND EXPENSES_

Economy, value, and right apportionment of time--Laws appointed by God
for the Jews--Christianity removes the restrictions laid on the Jews,
but demands all our time to be devoted to our own best interests and
the good of our fellow-men--Enjoyment connected with every duty--Various
modes of economizing time--System and order--Uniting several objects
in one employment--Odd intervals of time--Aiding others in economizing
time--Economy in expenses--Contradictory notions--General principles
in which all agree--Knowledge of income and expenses--Evils of want
of system and forethought--Young ladies should early learn to be
systematic and economical.

XX.

_HEALTH OF MIND._

Intimate connection between the body and mind--Brain excited by improper
stimulants taken into the stomach--Mental faculties then
affected--Causes of mental disease--Want of oxygenized blood--Fresh
air absolutely necessary--Excessive exercise of the intellect or
feelings--Such attention to religion as prevents the performance of
other duties, wrong--Unusual precocity in children usually the result
of a diseased brain--Idiocy often the result, or the precocious child
sinks below the average of mankind--This evil yet prevalent in colleges
and other seminaries--A medical man necessary in every seminary--Some
pupils always needing restraint in regard to study--A third cause of
mental disease, the want of appropriate exercise of the various
faculties of the mind--Extract from Dr. Combe--Beneficial results of
active intellectual employments--Indications of a diseased mind.

XXI.

_THE CARE OF INFANTS._

Herbert Spencer on the treatment of offspring--Absurdity of undertaking
to rear children without any knowledge of how to do it--Foolish
management of parents generally the cause of evils ascribed to
Providence--Errors of management during the first two years--Food of
child and of mother--Warning as to use of too much medicine--Fresh air--
Care of the skin--Dress--Sleep--Bathing--Change of air--Habits--Dangers
of the teething period--Constipation--Diarrhea--Teething--How to relieve
its dangers--Feverishness--Use of water.

XXII.

_THE MANAGEMENT OF YOUNG CHILDREN._

Physical education of children--Animal diet to be avoided for the very
young--Result of treatment at Albany Orphan Asylum--Good ventilation of
nurseries and schools--Moral training to consist in forming _habits_ of
submission, self-denial, and benevolence-General suggestions--Extremes
of sternness and laxity to be avoided--Appreciation of childish desires
and feelings--Sympathy--Partaking in games and employments--Inculcation
of principles preferable to multiplication of commands--Rewards rather
than penalties--Severe tones of voice--Children to be kept
happy--Sensitive children--Self-denial--Deceit and honesty--Immodesty
and delicacy--Dreadful penalties consequent upon youthful
impurities--Religious training.

XXIII.

_DOMESTIC AMUSEMENTS AND SOCIAL DUTIES._

Children need more amusement than older persons--Its object, to afford
rest and recreation to the mind and body--Example of Christ--No
amusements to be introduced that will tempt the weak or over-excite
the young--Puritan customs--Work followed by play--Dramatic exercises,
dancing, and festivity wholesomely enjoyed--The nine o'clock bell--The
drama and the dance--Card-playing--Novel-reading--Taste for solid
reading--Cultivation of fruits and flowers--Music--Collecting of shells,
plants, and minerals--Games--Exercise of mechanical skill for
boys--Sewing, cutting, and fitting--General suggestions--Social and
domestic duties--Family attachments--Hospitality.

XXIV.

_CARE OF THE AGED._

Preservation of the aged, designed to give opportunity for self-denial
and loving care--Patience, sympathy, and labor for them to be regarded
as privileges in a family--The young should respect and minister unto
the aged--Treating them as valued members of the family--Engaging them
in domestic Games and sports--Reading aloud-Courteous attention to
their opinions--Assistance in retarding decay of faculties by helping
them to exercise--Keeping up interest of the infirm in domestic
affairs--Great care to preserve animal heat--Ingratitude to the aged,
its baseness--Chinese regard for old age.

XXV.

_THE CARE OF SERVANTS._

Origin of the Yankee term "help"--Days of good health and intelligent
house-keeping--Growth of wealth tends to multiply hired service--
American young women should be trained in housekeeping for the guidance
of ignorant and shiftless servants--Difficulty of teaching
servants--Reaction of society in favor of women's intellectuality, in
danger of causing a new reaction--American girls should do more
work--Social estimate of domestic service--Dearth of intelligent
domestic help--Proper mode of treating servants--General rules and
special suggestions--Hints from experience--Woman's first "right,"
liberty to do what she can--Domestic duties not to be neglected for
operations in other spheres--Servants to be treated with respect--Errors
of heartless and of too indulgent employers--Mistresses of American
families necessarily missionaries and instructors.

XXVI.

_CARE Of THE SICK._

Prominence given to care and cure of the sick by our Saviour--Every
woman should know what to do in the case of illness--Simple remedies
best--Fasting and perspiration--Evils of constipation--Modes of
relieving it--Remedies for colds--Unwise to tempt the appetite of the
sick--Suggestion for the sick-room--Ventilation--Needful articles--The
room, bed, and person of the patient to be kept neat--Care to preserve
animal warmth--The sick, the delicate, the aged--Food always to be
carefully prepared and neatly served--Little modes of refreshment--
Implicit obedience to the physician--Care in purchasing medicines--
Exhibition of cheerfulness, gentleness, and sympathy--Knowledge and
experience of mind--Lack of competent nurses--Failings of nurses--
Sensitiveness of the sick--"Sisters of Charity," the reason why they are
such excellent nurses--Illness in the family a providential opportunity
of training children to love and usefulness.

XXVII.

_ACCIDENTS AND ANTIDOTES._

Mode of treating cuts, wounds, severed arteries--Bad bruises to be
bathed In hot water--Sprains treated with hot fomentation and
rest--Burns cured by creosote, wood-soot, or flour--Drowning; most
approved mode of treatment--Poisons and their antidotes--Soda,
saleratus, potash, sulphuric or oxalic acid, lime or baryta, iodine
or iodide of potassium, prussic acid, antimony, arsenic, lead, nitrate
of silver, phosphorus, alcohol, tobacco, opium, strychnia--Bleeding
at the lungs, stomach, throat, nose--Accidents from lightning--
Stupefaction, from coal-gas or foul air--Fire--Fainting--Coolness and
presence of mind.

XXVIII.

_SEWING, CUTTING, AND MENDING._

Different kinds of Stitch--Overstitch--Hems--Tucks--Fells--Gores--
Buttonholes--Whipping--Gathering--Darning--Basting--Sewing--Work-
baskets--To make a frock--Patterns--Fitting--Lining--Thin Silks--
Fitted and plain silks--Plaids--Stripes--Linen and Cotton--How to
buy--Shirts--Chemises--Night-gowns--Under-skirts--Mending--Silk
dresses--Broadcloth--Hose--Shoes, etc.--Bedding--Mattresses--
Sheeting--Bed-linen.

XXIX.

_FIRES AND LIGHTS._

Wood fires--Shallow fireplaces--Utensils--The best wood for fires
--How to measure a load--Splitting and piling--Ashes--Cleaning up--
Stoves and grates--Ventilation--Moisture--Stove-pipe thimbles--
Anthracite coal--Bituminous coal--Care to be used in erecting stoves
and pipes--Lights--Poor economy to use bad light--Gas--Oil--Kerosene--
Points to be considered: Steadiness, Color, Heat--Argand burners--
Dangers of kerosene--Tests of its safety and light-giving qualities--
Care of lamps--Utensils needed--Shades--Night-lamps--How to make
candles--Moulded--Dipped--Rush-lights.

XXX.

_THE CARE OF ROOMS._

Parlors--Cleansing--Furniture--Pictures--Hearths and jambs--Stains in
marble--Carpets--Chambers and bedrooms--Ventilation--How to make a bed
properly--Servants should have single beds and comfortable
rooms--Kitchens--Light--Air--Cleanliness--How to make a cheap
oil-cloth--The sink--Washing dishes--Kitchen furniture--Crockery--
Ironware--Tinware--Basketware--Other articles--Closets--Cellars--Dryness
and cleanliness imperative necessities--Store-rooms--Modes of destroying
insects and vermin.

XXXI.

_THE CARE OF YARDS AND GARDENS._

Preparation of soil for pot-plants--For hot-beds--For planting flower
seeds--For garden seeds--Transplanting--To re-pot house plants--The
laying out of yards and gardens--Transplanting trees--The care of
house plants.

XXXII.

_THE PROPAGATION OF PLANTS._

Propagation of bulbous roots--Propagation of plants by shoots--By
layers-Budding and grafting--The outer and inner bark--Detailed
description of operations--Seed-fruit--Stone-fruit--Rose hushes--
Ingrafting--Stock grafting--Pruning--Perpendicular shoots to be taken
out, horizontal or curved shoots retained--All fruit-buds coming out
after midsummer to be rubbed off--Suckers--Pruning to be done after
sap is in circulation.--Thinning--Leaves to be removed when they shade
fruit near maturity--Fruit to be removed when too abundant for good
quality--How to judge.

XXXIII.

_THE CULTIVATION OF FRUIT._

A pleasant, easy, and profitable occupation--Soil for a nursery--
Planting of seeds--Transplanting--Pruning--Filberts--Figs--Currants--
Gooseberries--Raspberries--Strawberries--Grapes--Modes of preserving
fruit trees--The yellows--Moths--Caterpillars--Brulure-Curculio--Canker-
worm.

XXXIV.

_THE CARE OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS._

Interesting association of animals with man, from childhood to
age--Domestic animals apt to catch the spirit of their masters--
Important necessities--Good feeding--Shelter--Cleanliness--Destruction
of parasitic vermin--Salt and water--Light--Exercise--Rule for
breeding--Care of Horses: feeding, grooming, special treatment--Cows:
stabling, feed, calving, milking, tethering--Swine: naturally cleanly,
breeding, fresh water, charcoal, feeding--Sheep: winter treatment--Diet
--Sorting--Use of sheep in clearing land-Pasture--Hedges and
fences--Poultry--Turkeys--Geese--Ducks--Fowls--Dairy work
generally--Bees--Care of domestic animals, occupation for women.

XXXV.

_EARTH-CLOSETS._

Deodorization and preservation of excrementitious matter--The
earth-closet--Waring's pamphlet--The agricultural argument--Necessity
of returning to the soil the elements taken from it--Earth-closet
based on power of clay and inorganic matter to absorb and retain odors
and fertilizing matter--Its construction--Mode of use--The ordinary
privy--The commode or portable house-privy--Especial directions:
things to be observed--Repeated use of earth--Other
advantages--Sick-rooms--House-labor--Cleanliness--Economy.

XXXVI.

_WARMING AND VENTILATION._

Open fireplace nearest to natural mode by which earth is warmed and
ventilated--Origin of diseases--Necessity of pure air to life
--Statistics--General principles of ventilation--Mode of Lewis
Leeds--Ventilation of buildings planned in this work--The pure-air
conductor--The foul-air exhausting-flue--Stoves--Detailed
arrangements--Warming--Economy of time, labor, and expense in the
cottage plan--After all schemes, the open fireplace the best.

XXXVII.

_CARE OF THE HOMELESS, THE HELPLESS, AND THE VICIOUS._

Recommendations of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities--Pauper
and criminal classes should be scattered in Christian homes instead
of gathered into large institutions--Facts recently published concerning
the poor of New-York--Sufferings of the poor, deterioration of the
rich--Christian principles of benevolence--Plan for a Christian city
house--Suggestions to wealthy and unoccupied women--Roman Catholic
works--Protestant duties--The highest mission of woman.
XXXVIII.

_THE CHRISTIAN NEIGHBORHOOD._

Spirit of Christian Missions--Present organizations under church
direction too mechanical--Christian family influence the true instrument
of Gospel propagation--Practical suggestions for gathering a Christian
family in neglected neighborhoods--Plan of church, school-house, and
family-dwelling in one building--Mode of use for various
purposes--Nucleus and gathering of a family--Christian work for
Christian women--Children--Orphans--Servants--Neglected ones--Household
training--Roman Catholic Nuns--The South--The West--The neglected
interior of older States--Power of such examples--Rapid spread of their
influence--Anticipation of the glorious consummation to be hoped
for--Prophecy in the Scriptures--Cowper's noble vision of the millennial
glory.

APPEAL TO AMERICAN WOMEN.

GLOSSARY OF WORDS AND REFERENCES




INTRODUCTION.


The authors of this volume, while they sympathize with every honest
effort to relieve the disabilities and sufferings of their sex, are
confident that the chief cause of these evils is the fact that the
honor and duties of the family state are not duly appreciated, that
women are not trained for these duties as men are trained for their
trades and professions, and that, as the consequence, family labor is
poorly done, poorly paid, and regarded as menial and disgraceful.

To be the nurse of young children, a cook, or a housemaid, is regarded
as the lowest and last resort of poverty, and one which no woman of
culture and position can assume without loss of caste and
respectability.

It is the aim of this volume to elevate both the honor and the
remuneration of all the employments that sustain the many difficult
and sacred duties of the family state, and thus to render each
department of woman's true profession as much desired and respected
as are the most honored professions of men.

When the other sex are to be instructed in law, medicine, or divinity,
they are favored with numerous institutions richly endowed, with
teachers of the highest talents and acquirements, with extensive
libraries, and abundant and costly apparatus. With such advantages
they devote nearly ten of the best years of life to preparing themselves
for their profession; and to secure the public from unqualified members
of these professions, none can enter them until examined by a competent
body, who certify to their due preparation for their duties.

Woman's profession embraces the care and nursing of the body in the
critical periods of infancy and sickness, the training of the human
mind in the most impressible period of childhood, the instruction and
control of servants, and most of the government and economies of the
family state. These duties of woman are as sacred and important as any
ordained to man; and yet no such advantages for preparation have been
accorded to her, nor is there any qualified body to certify the public
that a woman is duly prepared to give proper instruction in her
profession.

This unfortunate want, and also the questions frequently asked
concerning the domestic qualifications of both the authors of this
work, who have formerly written upon such topics, make it needful to
give some account of the advantages they have enjoyed in preparation
for the important office assumed as teachers of woman's domestic duties.

The sister whose name is subscribed is the eldest of nine children by
her own mother, and of four by her step-mother; and having a natural
love for children, she found it a pleasure as well as a duty to aid
in the care of infancy and childhood. At sixteen, she was deprived of
a mother, who was remarkable not only for intelligence and culture,
but for a natural taste and skill in domestic handicraft. Her place
was awhile filled by an aunt remarkable for her habits of neatness and
order, and especially for her economy. She was, in the course of time,
replaced by a stepmother, who had been accustomed to a superior style
of housekeeping, and was an expert in all departments of domestic
administration.

Under these successive housekeepers, the writer learned not only to
perform in the most approved manner all the manual employments of
domestic life, but to honor and enjoy these duties.

At twenty-three, she commenced the institution which ever since has
flourished as "The Hartford Female Seminary," where, at the age of
twelve, the sister now united with her in the authorship of this work
became her pupil, and, after a few years, her associate. The removal
of the family to the West, and failure of health, ended a connection
with the Hartford Seminary, and originated a similar one in Cincinnati,
of which the younger authoress of this work was associate principal
till her marriage.

At this time, the work on _Domestic Economy_, of which this volume
may be called an enlarged edition, although a great portion of it is
entirely new, embodying the latest results of science, was prepared
by the writer as a part of the _Massachusetts School Library_,
and has since been extensively introduced as a text-book into public
schools and higher female seminaries. It was followed by its sequel,
_The Domestic Receipt-Book_, widely circulated by the Harpers in
every State of the Union.

These two works have been entirely remodeled, former topics rewritten,
and many new ones introduced, so as to include all that is properly
embraced in a complete Encyclopedia of Domestic Economy.

In addition to the opportunities mentioned, the elder sister, for many
years, has been studying the causes and the remedies for the decay of
constitution and loss of health so increasingly prevalent among American
women, aiming to promote the establishment of _endowed_ institutions, in
which women shall be properly trained for their profession, as both
housekeepers and health-keepers. What advantages have thus been received
and the results thus obtained will appear in succeeding pages.

During the upward progress of the age, and the advance of a more
enlightened Christianity, the writers of this volume have gained more
elevated views of the true mission of woman--of the dignity and
importance of her distinctive duties, and of the true happiness which
will be the reward of a right appreciation of this mission, and a
proper performance of these duties.

There is at the present time an increasing agitation of the public
mind, evolving many theories and some crude speculations as to woman's
rights and duties. That there is a great social and moral power in her
keeping, which is now seeking expression by organization, is manifest,
and that resulting plans and efforts will involve some mistakes, some
collisions, and some failures, all must expect.

But to intelligent, reflecting, and benevolent women--whose faith rests
on the character and teachings of Jesus Christ--there are great
principles revealed by Him, which in the end will secure the grand
result which He taught and suffered to achieve. It is hoped that in
the following pages these principles will be so exhibited and
illustrated as to aid in securing those rights and advantages which
Christ's religion aims to provide for all, and especially for the most
weak and defenseless of His children.

CATHARINE E. BEECHER.

[Illustration]





CHAPTER I.

THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY.


It is the aim of this volume to elevate both the honor and the
remuneration of all employments that sustain the many difficult and
varied duties of the family state, and thus to render each department
of woman's profession as much desired and respected as are the most
honored professions of men.

What, then, is the end designed by the family state which Jesus Christ
came into this world to secure?

It is to provide for the training of our race to the highest possible
intelligence, virtue, and happiness, by means of the self-sacrificing
labors of the wise and good, and this with chief reference to a future
immortal existence. The distinctive feature of the family is
self-sacrificing labor of the stronger and wiser members to raise the
weaker and more ignorant to equal advantages. The father undergoes
toil and self-denial to provide a home, and then the mother becomes
a self-sacrificing laborer to train its inmates. The useless,
troublesome infant is served in the humblest offices; while both parents
unite in training it to an equality with themselves in every advantage.
Soon the older children become helpers to raise the younger to a level
with their own. When any are sick, those who are well become
self-sacrificing ministers. When the parents are old and useless, the
children become their self-sacrificing servants.

Thus the discipline of the family state is one of daily self-devotion
of the stronger and wiser to elevate and support the weaker members.
Nothing could be more contrary to its first principles than for the
older and more capable children to combine to secure to themselves the
highest advantages, enforcing the drudgeries on the younger, at the
sacrifice of their equal culture.

Jesus Christ came to teach the fatherhood of God and consequent
brotherhood of man. He came as the "first-born Son" of God and the
Elder Brother of man, to teach by example the self-sacrifice by which
the great family of man is to be raised to equality of advantages as
children of God. For this end, he "humbled himself" from the highest
to the lowest place. He chose for his birthplace the most despised
village; for his parents the lowest in rank; for his trade, to labor
with his hands as a carpenter, being "subject to his parents" thirty
years. And, what is very significant, his trade was that which prepares
the family home, as if he would teach that the great duty of man is
labor--to provide for and train weak and ignorant creatures. Jesus
Christ worked with his hands nearly thirty years, and preached less
than three. And he taught that his kingdom is exactly opposite to that
of the world, where all are striving for the highest positions. "Whoso
will be great shall be your minister, and whoso will be chiefest shall
be servant of all."

The family state then, is the aptest earthly illustration of the
heavenly kingdom, and in it woman is its chief minister. Her great
mission is self-denial, in training its members to self-sacrificing
labors for the ignorant and weak: if not her own children, then the
neglected children of her Father in heaven. She is to rear all under
her care to lay up treasures, not on earth, but in heaven. All the
pleasures of this life end here; but those who train immortal minds
are to reap the fruit of their labor through eternal ages.

To man is appointed the out-door labor--to till the earth, dig the
mines, toil in the foundries, traverse the ocean, transport merchandise,
labor in manufactories, construct houses, conduct civil, municipal,
and state affairs, and all the heavy work, which, most of the day,
excludes him from the comforts of a home. But the great stimulus to
all these toils, implanted in the heart of every true man, is the
desire for a home of his own, and the hopes of paternity. Every man
who truly lives for immortality responds to the beatitude, "Children
are a heritage from the Lord: blessed is the man that hath his quiver
full of them!" The more a father and mother live under the influence
of that "immortality which Christ hath brought to light," the more is
the blessedness of rearing a family understood and appreciated. Every
child trained aright is to dwell forever in exalted bliss with those
that gave it life and trained it for heaven.

The blessed privileges of the family state are not confined to those
who rear children of their own. Any woman who can earn a livelihood,
as every woman should be trained to do, can take a properly qualified
female associate, and institute a family of her own, receiving to its
heavenly influences the orphan, the sick, the homeless, and the sinful,
and by motherly devotion train them to follow the self-denying example
of Christ, in educating his earthly children for true happiness in
this life and for his eternal home.

And such is the blessedness of aiding to sustain a truly Christian
home, that no one comes so near the pattern of the All-perfect One as
those who might hold what men call a higher place, and yet humble
themselves to the lowest in order to aid in training the young, "not
as men-pleasers, but as servants to Christ, with good-will doing service
as to the Lord, and not to men." Such are preparing for high places
in the kingdom of heaven. "Whosoever will be chiefest among you, let
him be your servant."

It is often the case that the true humility of Christ is not understood.
It was not in having a low opinion of his own character and claims,
but it was in taking a low place in order to raise others to a higher.
The worldling seeks to raise himself and family to an equality with
others, or, if possible, a superiority to them. The true follower of
Christ comes down in order to elevate others.

The maxims and institutions of this world have ever been antagonistic
to the teachings and example of Jesus Christ. Men toil for wealth,
honor, and power, not as means for raising others to an equality with
themselves, but mainly for earthly, selfish advantages. Although the
experience of this life shows that children brought up to labor have
the fairest chance for a virtuous and prosperous life, and for hope
of future eternal blessedness, yet it is the aim of most parents who
can do so, to lay up wealth that their children need not labor with
the hands as Christ did. And although exhorted by our Lord not to lay
up treasure on earth, but rather the imperishable riches which are
gained in toiling to train the ignorant and reform the sinful, as yet
a large portion of the professed followers of Christ, like his first
disciples, are "slow of heart to believe."

Not less have the sacred ministries of the family state been undervalued
and warred upon in other directions; for example, the Romish Church
has made celibacy a prime virtue, and given its highest honors to those
who forsake the family state as ordained by God. Thus came great
communities of monks and nuns, shut out from the love and labors of
a Christian home; thus, also, came the monkish systems of education,
collecting the young in great establishments away from the watch and
care of parents, and the healthful and self-sacrificing labors of a
home. Thus both religion and education have conspired to degrade the
family state.

Still more have civil laws and social customs been opposed to the
principles of Jesus Christ. It has ever been assumed that the learned,
the rich, and the powerful are not to labor with the hands, as Christ
did, and as Paul did when he would "not eat any man's bread for naught,
but wrought with labor, not because we have not power "[to live
without hand-work,]" but to make ourselves an example."(2 Thess. 3.)

Instead of this, manual labor has been made dishonorable and unrefined
by being forced on the ignorant and poor. Especially has the most
important of all hand-labor, that which sustains the family, been thus
disgraced; so that to nurse young children, and provide the food of
a family by labor, is deemed the lowest of all positions in honor and
profit, and the last resort of poverty. And so our Lord, who himself
took the form of a servant, teaches, "How hardly shall they that have
riches enter the kingdom of heaven!"--that kingdom in which all are
toiling to raise the weak, ignorant, and sinful to such equality with
themselves as the children of a loving family enjoy. One mode in
which riches have led to antagonism with the true end of the family state
is in the style of living, by which the hand-labor, most important to
health, comfort, and beauty, is confined to the most ignorant and
neglected members of society, without any effort being made to raise
them to equal advantages with the wise and cultivated.

And, the higher civilization has advanced, the more have children been
trained to feel that to labor, as did Christ and Paul, is disgraceful,
and to be made the portion of a degraded class. Children, of the rich
grow up with the feeling that servants are to work for them, and they
themselves are not to work. To the minds of most children and servants,
"to be a lady," is almost synonymous with "to be waited on, and do no
work," It is the earnest desire of the authors of this volume to make
plain the falsity of this growing popular feeling, and to show how
much happier and more efficient family life will become when it is
strengthened, sustained, and adorned by family work.




II.

A CHRISTIAN HOUSE.


In the Divine Word it is written, "The wise woman buildeth her house."
To be "wise," is "to choose the best means for accomplishing the best
end." It has been shown that the best end for a woman to seek is the
training of God's children for their eternal home, by guiding them to
intelligence, virtue, and true happiness. When, therefore, the wise
woman seeks a home in which to exercise this ministry, she will aim
to secure a house so planned that it will provide in the best manner
for health, industry, and economy, those cardinal requisites of domestic
enjoyment and success. To aid in this, is the object of the following
drawings and descriptions, which will illustrate a style of living
more conformed to the great design for which the family is instituted
than that which ordinarily prevails among those classes which take the
lead in forming the customs of society. The aim will be to exhibit
modes of economizing labor, time, and expenses, so as to secure health,
thrift, and domestic happiness to persons of limited means, in a measure
rarely attained even by those who possess wealth.

At the head of this chapter is a sketch of what may be properly called
a Christian house; that is, a house contrived for the express purpose
of enabling every member of a family to labor with the hands for the
common good, and by modes at once healthful, economical, and tasteful.
Of course, much of the instruction conveyed in the following pages is
chiefly applicable to the wants and habits of those living either in
the country or in such suburban vicinities as give space of ground for
healthful outdoor occupation in the family service, although the general
principles of house-building and house-keeping are of necessity
universal in their application--as true in the busy confines of the
city as in the freer and purer quietude of the country. So far as
circumstances can be made to yield the opportunity, it will be assumed
that the family state demands some outdoor labor for all. The
cultivation of flowers to ornament the table and house, of fruits and
vegetables for food, of silk and cotton for clothing, and the care of
horse, cow, and dairy, can be so divided that each and all of the
family, some part of the day, can take exercise in the pure air, under
the magnetic and healthful rays of the sun. Every head of a family
should seek a soil and climate which will afford such opportunities.
Railroads, enabling men toiling in cities to rear families in the
country, are on this account a special blessing. So, also, is the
opening of the South to free labor, where, in the pure and mild climate
of the uplands, open-air labor can proceed most of the year, and women
and children labor out of doors as well as within.

In the following drawings are presented modes of economizing time,
labor, and expense by the close packing of conveniences. By such
methods, small and economical houses can be made to secure most of the
comforts and many of the refinements of large and expensive ones. The
cottage at the head of this chapter is projected on a plan which can
be adapted to a warm or cold climate with little change. By adding
another story, it would serve a large family.

[Illustration: Fig. 1.]

Fig. 1 shows the ground-plan of the first floor. On the inside it is
forty-three feet long and twenty-five wide, excluding conservatories
and front and back projections. Its inside height from floor to ceiling
is ten feet. The piazzas each side of the front projection have
sliding-windows to the floor, and can, by glazed sashes, be made
green-houses in winter. In a warm climate, piazzas can be made at the
back side also.

In the description and arrangement, the leading aim is to show how
time, labor, and expense are saved, not only in the building but in
furniture and its arrangement. With this aim, the ground-floor and its
furniture will first be shown, then the second story and its furniture,
and then the basement and its conveniences. The conservatories are
appendages not necessary to housekeeping, but useful in many ways
pointed out more at large in other chapters.

[Illustration: Fig. 2]

The entry has arched recesses behind the front doors, (Fig. 2,)
furnished with hooks for over-clothes in both--a box for over-shoes
in one, and a stand for umbrellas in the other. The roof of the recess
is for statuettes, busts, or flowers. The stairs turn twice with broad
steps, making a recess at the lower landing, whore a table is set with
a vase of flowers, (Fig. 3.) On one side of the recess is a closet,
arched to correspond with the arch over the stairs. A bracket over the
first broad stair, with flowers or statuettes, is visible from the
entrance, and pictures can be hung as in the illustration.

The large room on the left can be made to serve the purpose of several
rooms by means of a _movable screen_. By shifting this rolling screen
from one part of the room to another, two apartments are always
available, of any desired size within the limits of the large room.
One side of the screen fronts what may be used as the parlor or
sitting-room; the other side is arranged for bedroom conveniences. Of
this, Fig. 4 shows the front side;--covered first with strong canvas,
stretched and nailed on. Over this is pasted panel-paper, and the
upper part is made to resemble an ornamental cornice by fresco-paper.
Pictures can be hung in the panels, or be pasted on and varnished with
white varnish. To prevent the absorption of the varnish, a wash of gum
isinglass (fish-glue) must be applied twice.

[Illustration: Fig. 4. CLOSET, RECESS, STAIR LANDING.]

[Illustration: Fig 5.]

Fig. 5 shows the back or inside of the movable screen toward the part
of the room used as the bedroom. On one side, and at the top and bottom,
it has shelves with _shelf-boxes_, which are cheaper and better than
drawers, and much preferred by those using them. Handles are cut in the
front and back side, as seen in Fig. 6. Half an inch space must be
between the box and the shelf over it, and as much each side, so that it
can be taken out and put in easily. The central part of the screen's
interior is a wardrobe.

[Image: Panel screens]

This screen must be so high as nearly to reach the ceiling, in order
to prevent it from overturning. It is to fill the width of the room,
except two feet on each side. A projecting cleat or strip, reaching
nearly to the top of the screen, three inches wide, is to be screwed
to the front sides, on which light frame doors are to be hung, covered
with canvas and panel-paper like the front of the screen. The inside
of these doors is furnished with hooks for clothing, for which the
projection makes room. The whole screen is to be eighteen inches deep
at the top and two feet deep at the base, giving a solid foundation.
It is moved on four wooden rollers, one foot long and four inches in
diameter. The pivots of the rollers and the parts where there is
friction must be rubbed with hard soap, and then a child can move the
whole easily.

A curtain is to be hung across the whole interior of the screen by
rings, on a strong wire. The curtain should be in three parts, with
lead or large nails in the hems to keep it in place. The wood-work
must be put together with screws, as the screen is too large to pass
through a, door.

[Illustration: Fig. 6.]
[Illustration: Fig. 7.]
[Illustration: Fig. 8.]

At the end of the room, behind the screen, are two couches, to be run
one under the other, as in Fig. 7. The upper one is made with four
posts, each three feet high and three inches square, set on casters
two inches high. The frame is to be fourteen inches from the floor,
seven feet long, two feet four inches wide, and three inches in
thickness. At the head, and at the foot, is to be screwed a notched
two-inch board, three inches wide, as in Fig. 8. The mortises are to
be one inch wide and deep, and one inch apart, to revive slats made
of ash, oak, or spruce, one inch square, placed lengthwise of the
couch. The slats being small, and so near together, and running
lengthwise, make a better spring frame than wire coils. If they warp,
they can be turned. They must not be fastened at the ends, except by
insertion in the notches. Across the posts, and of equal height with
them, are to be screwed head and foot-boards.

The under couch is like the upper, except these dimensions: posts,
nine inches high, including castors; frame, six feet two inches long,
two feet four inches wide. The frame should be as near the floor as
possible, resting on the casters.

[Illustration: Fig. 9.]

The most healthful and comfortable mattress is made by a case, open
in the centre and fastened together with buttons, as in Fig. 9; to be
filled with oat straw, which is softer than wheat or rye. This can be
adjusted to the figure, and often renewed.

Fig. 10 represents the upper couch when covered, with the under couch
put beneath it. The coverlid should match the curtain of the screen;
and the pillows, by day, should have a case of the same.

[Illustration: Fig. 10.]
[Illustration: Fig. 11.]

Fig. 11 is an ottoman, made as a box, with a lid on hinges. A cushion
is fastened to this lid by strings at each corner, passing through
holes in the box lid and tied inside. The cushion to be cut square,
with side pieces; stuffed with hair, and stitched through like a
mattress. Side handles are made by cords fastened inside with knots.
The box must be two inches larger at the bottom than at the top, and
the lid and cushion the same size as the bottom, to give it a tasteful
shape. This ottoman is set on casters, and is a great convenience for
holding articles, while serving also as a seat.

The expense of the screen, where lumber averages $4 a hundred, and
carpenter labor $3 a day, would be about $30, and the two couches about
$6. The material for covering might be cheap and yet pretty. A woman
with these directions, and a son or husband who would use plane and
saw, could thus secure much additional room, and also what amounts to
two bureaus, two large trunks, one large wardrobe, and a wash-stand,
for less than $20--the mere cost of materials. The screen and couches
can be so arranged as to have one room serve first as a large and airy
sleeping-room; then, in the morning, it may be used as sitting-room
one side of the screen, and breakfast-room the other; and lastly,
through the day it can be made a large parlor on the front side, and
a sewing or retiring-room the other side. The needless spaces usually
devoted to kitchen, entries, halls, back-stairs, pantries, store-rooms,
and closets, by this method would be used in adding to the size of the
large room, so variously used by day and by night.

[Illustration: Fig. 12.]

Fig. 12 is an enlarged plan of the kitchen and stove-room. The chimney
and stove-room are contrived to ventilate the whole house, by a mode
exhibited in another chapter.

Between the two rooms glazed sliding-doors, passing each other, serve
to shut out heat and smells from the kitchen. The sides of the
stove-room must be lined with shelves; those on the side by the cellar
stairs, to be one foot wide, and eighteen inches apart; on the other
side, shelves may be narrower, eight inches wide and nine inches apart.
Boxes with lids, to receive stove utensils, must be placed near the
stove.

On these shelves, and in the closet and boxes, can be placed every
material used for cooking, all the table and cooking utensils, and all
the articles used in house work, and yet much spare room will be left.
The cook's galley in a steamship has every article and utensil used
in cooking for two hundred persons, in a space not larger than this
stove-room, and so arranged that with one or two steps the cook can
reach all he uses.

In contrast to this, in most large houses, the table furniture, the
cooking materials and utensils, the sink, and the eating-room, are at
such distances apart, that half the time and strength is employed in
walking back and forth to collect and return the articles used.

[Illustration: Fig. 13.]

Fig. 13 is an enlarged plan of the sink and cooking-form. Two windows
make a better circulation of air in warm weather, by having one open
at top and the other at the bottom, while the light is better adjusted
for working, in case of weak eyes.

The flour-barrel just fills the closet, which has a door for admission,
and a lid to raise when used. Beside it, is the form for cooking, with
a moulding-board laid on it; one side used for preparing vegetables
and meat, and the other for moulding bread. The sink has two pumps,
for well and for rain-water--one having a forcing power to throw water
into the reservoir in the garret, which supplies the water-closet
and bath-room. On the other side of the sink is the dish-drainer, with a
ledge on the edge next the sink, to hold the dishes, and grooves cut
to let the water drain into the sink. It has hinges, so that it can
either rest on the cook-form or be turned over and cover the sink.
Under the sink are shelf-boxes placed on two shelves run into grooves,
with other grooves above and below, so that one may move the shelves
and increase or diminish the spaces between. The shelf-boxes can be
used for scouring-materials, dish-towels, and dish-cloths; also to
hold bowls for bits of butter, fats, etc. Under these two shelves is
room for two pails, and a jar for soap-grease.

Under the cook-form are shelves and shelf-boxes for unbolted wheat,
corn-meal, rye, etc. Beneath these, for white and brown sugar, are
wooden can-pails, which are the best articles in which to keep these
constant necessities. Beside them is the tin molasses-can with a tight,
movable cover, and a cork in the spout. This is much better than a jug
for molasses, and also for vinegar and oil, being easier to clean and
to handle. Other articles and implements for cooking can be arranged
on or under the shelves at the side and front. A small cooking-tray,
holding pepper, salt, dredging-box, knife and spoon, should stand close
at hand by the stove, (Fig. 14.)

[Illustration: Fig. 14.]
[Illustration: Fig. 15.]

The articles used for setting tables are to be placed on the shelves
at the front and side of the sink. Two tumbler-trays, made of
pasteboard, covered with varnished fancy papers and divided by wires,
(as shown in Fig. 15,) save many steps in setting and clearing table.
Similar trays, (Fig. 16,) for knives and forks and spoons, serve the
same purpose.

[Illustration: Fig. 16.]

The sink should be three feet long and three inches deep, its width
matching the cook-form.

[Illustration: Fig. 18.]

Fig. 17 is the second or attic story. The main objection to attic rooms
is their warmth in summer, owing to the heated roof. This is prevented
by so enlarging the closets each side that their walls meet the ceiling
under the garret floor, thus excluding all the roof. In the
bed-chambers, corner dressing-tables, as Fig. 18, instead of projecting
bureaus, save much space for use, and give a handsome form and finish
to the room. In the bath-room must be the opening to the garret, and
a step-ladder to reach it. A reservoir in the garret, supplied by a
forcing-pump in the cellar or at the sink, must be well supported by
timbers, and the plumbing must be well done, or much annoyance will
ensue.

The large chambers are to be lighted by large windows or glazed
sliding-doors, opening upon the balcony. A roof can be put over the
balcony and its sides inclosed by windows, and the chamber extend into
it, and be thus much enlarged.

The water-closets must have the latest improvements for safe discharge,
and there will be no trouble. They cost no more than an out-door
building, and save from the most disagreeable house-labor.
A great improvement, called _earth-closets_, will probably take the
place of water-closets to some extent; though at present the water
is the more convenient. A description of the earth-closet will be given
in another chapter relating to tenement-houses for the poor in large
cities.

The method of ventilating all the chambers, and also the cellar, will
be described in another chapter.

[Illustration: Fig. 19.]

Fig. 19 represents a shoe-bag, that can be fastened to the side of a
closet or closet-door.

[Illustration: Fig. 20.]

Fig. 20 represents a piece-bag, and is a very great labor and
space-saving invention. It is made of calico, and fastened to the side
of a closet or a door, to hold all the bundles that are usually stowed
in trunks and drawers. India-rubber or elastic tape drawn into hems
to hold the contents of the bag is better than tape-strings. Each bag
should be labeled with the name of its contents, written with indelible
ink on white tape sewed on to the bag. Such systematic arrangement
saves much time and annoyance. Drawers or trunks to hold these articles
can not be kept so easily in good order, and moreover, occupy spaces
saved by this contrivance.

[Illustration: Fig. 21. Floor plan]

Fig. 21 is the basement. It has the floor and sides plastered, and is
lighted with glazed doors. A form is raised close by the cellar stairs,
for baskets, pails, and tubs. Here, also, the refrigerator can be
placed, or, what is better, an ice-closet can be made, as designated
in the illustration. The floor of the basement must be an inclined
plane toward a drain, and be plastered with water-lime. The wash-tubs
have plugs in the bottom to let off water, and cocks and pipes over
them bringing cold water from the reservoir in the garret and hot water
from the laundry stove. This saves much heavy labor of emptying tubs
and carrying water.

The laundry closet has a stove for heating irons, and also a kettle
on top for heating water. Slides or clothes-frames are made to draw
out to receive wet clothes, and then run into the closet to dry. This
saves health as well as time and money, and the clothes are as white
as when dried outdoors.

The wood-work of the house, for doors, windows, etc., should be oiled
chestnut, butternut, white-wood, and pine. This is cheaper, handsomer,
and more easy to keep clean than painted wood.

In Fig. 21 are planned two conservatories, and few understand their
value in the training of the young. They provide soil, in which
children, through the winter months, can be starting seeds and plants
for their gardens find raising valuable, tender plants. Every child
should cultivate flowers and fruits to sell and to give away, and thus
be taught to learn the value of money and to practice both economy and
benevolence.

According to the calculation of a house-carpenter, in a place where
the average price of lumber is $4 a hundred, and carpenter work $3 a
day, such a house can be built for $1600. For those practicing the
closest economy, two small families could occupy it, by dividing the
kitchen, and yet have room enough. Or one large room and the chamber
over it can be left till increase of family and means require
enlargement.

A strong horse and carryall, with a cow, garden, vineyard, and orchard,
on a few acres, would secure all the substantial comforts found in
great establishments, without the trouble of ill-qualified servants.

And if the parents and children were united in the daily labors of the
house, garden, and fruit culture; such thrift, health, and happiness
would be secured as is but rarely found among the rich.

Let us suppose a colony of cultivated and Christian people, having
abundant wealth, who now are living as the wealthy usually do,
emigrating to some of the beautiful Southern uplands, where are rocks,
hills, valleys, and mountains as picturesque as those of New England,
where the thermometer but rarely reaches 90 degrees in summer, and in
winter as rarely sinks below freezing-point, so that outdoor labor goes
on all the year, where the fertile soil is easily worked, where rich
tropical fruits and flowers abound, where cotton and silk can be raised
by children around their home, where the produce of vineyards and
orchards finds steady markets by railroads ready made; suppose such
a colony, with a central church and school-room, library, hall for
sports, and a common laundry, (taking the most trying part of domestic
labor from each house,)--suppose each family to train the children to
labor with the hands as a healthful and honorable duty; suppose all
this, which is perfectly practicable, would not the enjoyment of this
life be increased, and also abundant treasures be laid up in heaven,
by using the wealth thus economized in diffusing similar enjoyments
and culture among the poor, ignorant, and neglected ones in desolated
sections where many now are perishing for want of such Christian example
and influences?




III.

A HEALTHFUL HOME.


When "the wise woman buildeth her house," the first consideration will
be the health of the inmates. The first and most indispensable requisite
for health is pure air, both by day and night.

If the parents of a family should daily withhold from their children
a large portion of food needful to growth and health, and every night
should administer to each a small dose of poison, it would be called
murder of the most hideous character. But it is probable that more
than one half of this nation are doing that very thing. The murderous
operation is perpetrated daily and nightly, in our parlors, our
bed-rooms, our kitchens, our schoolrooms; and even our churches are
no asylum from the barbarity. Nor can we escape by our railroads, for
even there the same dreadful work is going on.

The only palliating circumstance is the ignorance of those who commit
these wholesale murders. As saith the Scripture, "The people do perish
for lack of knowledge." And it is this lack of knowledge which it is
woman's special business to supply, in first training her household
to intelligence as the indispensable road to virtue and happiness.

The above statements will be illustrated by some account of the manner
in which the body is supplied with healthful nutriment. There are two
modes of nourishing the body, one is by food and the other by air. In
the stomach the food is dissolved, and the nutritious portion is
absorbed by the blood, and then is earned by blood-vessels to the
lungs, where it receives oxygen from the air we breathe. This oxygen
is as necessary to the nourishment of the body as the food for the
stomach. In a full-grown man weighing one hundred and fifty-four pounds,
one hundred and eleven pounds consists of oxygen, obtained chiefly
from the air we breathe. Thus the lungs feed the body with oxygen, as
really as the stomach supplies the other food required.

The lungs occupy the upper portion of the body from the collar-bone
to the lower ribs, and between their two lobes is placed the heart.

[Illustration: Fig. 22.]
[Illustration: Fig. 23.]
[Illustration: Fig. 24.]
[Illustration: Fig. 25.]
[Illustration: Fig. 26.]

Fig. 22 shows the position of the lungs, though not the exact shape.
On the right hand is the exterior of one of the lobes, and on the left
hand are seen the branching tubes of the interior, through which the
air we breathe passes to the exceedingly minute air-cells of which the
lungs chiefly consist. Fig. 23 shows the outside of a cluster of these
air-cells, and Fig. 24 is the inside view. The lining membrane of each
air-cell is covered by a network of minute blood-vessels called
_capillaries_ which, magnified several hundred times, appear in the
microscope as at Fig. 25. Every air-cell has a blood-vessel that brings
blood from the heart, which meanders through its capillaries till it
reaches another blood-vessel that carries it back to the heart, as
seen in Fig. 26. In this passage of the blood through these capillaries,
the air in the air-cell imparts its oxygen to the blood, and receives
in exchange carbonic acid and watery vapor. These latter are expired
at every breath into the atmosphere.

By calculating the number of air cells in a small portion of the lungs,
under a microscope, it is ascertained that there are no less than
eighteen million of these wonderful little purifiers and feeders of
the body. By their ceaseless ministries, every grown person receives,
each day, thirty-three hogsheads of air into the lungs to nourish and
vitalize every part of the body, and also to carry off its impurities.

But the heart has a most important agency in this operation. Fig. 27
is a diagram of the heart, which is placed between the two lobes of
the lungs. The right side of the heart receives the dark and impure
blood, which is loaded with carbonic acid. It is brought from every
point of the body by branching veins that unite in the upper and the
lower _vena cava_, which discharge into the right side of the heart.
This impure blood passes to the capillaries of the air-cells in the
lungs, where it gives off carbonic acid, and, taking oxygen from the
air, then returns to the left side of the heart, from whence it is sent
out through the _aorta_ and its myriad branching arteries to every part
of the body. When the upper portion of the heart contracts, it forces
both the pure blood from the lungs, and the impure blood from the body,
through the valves marked V, V, into the lower part. When the lower
portion contracts, it closes the valves and forces the impure blood into
the lungs on one side, and also on the other side forces the purified
blood through the aorta and arteries to all parts of the body.

As before stated, the lungs consist chiefly of air-cells, the walls
of which are lined with minute blood-vessels; and we know that in every
man these air-cells number _eighteen millions_.

Now every beat of the heart sends two ounces of blood into the minute,
hair-like blood-vessels, called capillaries, that line these air-cells,
where the air in the air-cells gives its oxygen to the blood, and in
its place receives carbonic acid. This gas is then expired by the lungs
into the surrounding atmosphere.

Thus, by this powerful little organ, the heart, no less than
twenty-eight pounds of blood, in a common-sized man, is sent three
times every hour through the lungs, giving out carbonic acid and watery
vapor, and receiving the life-inspiring oxygen.

Whether all this blood shall convey the nourishing and invigorating
oxygen to every part of the body, or return unrelieved of carbonic
acid, depends entirely on the pureness of the atmosphere that is
breathed.

Every time we think or feel, this mental action dissolves some particles
of the brain and nerves, which pass into the blood to be thrown out
of the body through the lungs and skin. In like manner, whenever we
move any muscle, some of its particles decay and pass away. It is in
the capillaries, which are all over the body, that this change takes
place. The blood-vessels that convey the pure blood from the heart,
divide into myriads of little branches that terminate in capillary
vessels like those lining the air-cells of the lungs. The blood meanders
through these minute capillaries, depositing the oxygen taken from the
lungs and the food of the stomach, and receiving in return the decayed
matter, which is chiefly carbonic acid.

This carbonic acid is formed by the union of oxygen with _carbon_ or
_charcoal_, which forms a large portion of the body. Watery vapor is
also formed in the capillaries by the union of oxygen with the hydrogen
contained in the food and drink that nourish the body.

During this process in the capillaries, the bright red blood of the
arteries changes to the purple blood of the veins, which is carried
back to the heart, to be sent to the lungs as before described. A
portion of the oxygen received in the lungs unites with the dissolved
food sent from the stomach into the blood, and no food can nourish the
body till it has received a proper supply of oxygen in the lungs. At
every breath a half-pint of blood receives its needed oxygen in the
lungs, and at the same time gives out an equal amount of carbonic acid
and water.

Now, this carbonic acid, if received into the lungs, undiluted by
sufficient air, is a fatal poison, causing certain death. When it is
mixed with only a small portion of air, it is a slow poison, which
imperceptibly undermines the constitution.

We now can understand how it is that all who live in houses where the
breathing of inmates has deprived the air of oxygen, and loaded it
with carbonic acid, may truly be said to be poisoned and starved;
poisoned with carbonic acid, and starved for want of oxygen.

Whenever oxygen unites with carbon to form carbonic acid, or with
hydrogen to form water, heat is generated Thus it is that a land of
combustion is constantly going on in the capillaries all over the body.
It is this burning of the decaying portions of the body that causes
animal heat. It is a process similar to that which takes place when
lamps and candles are burning. The oil and tallows which are chiefly
carbon and hydrogen, unite with the oxygen of the air and form carbonic
acid and watery vapor, producing heat during the process. So in the
capillaries all over the body, the carbon and hydrogen supplied to the
blood by the stomach, unite with the oxygen gained in the lungs, and
cause the heat which is diffused all over the body.

The skin also performs an office, similar to that of the lungs. In the
skin of every adult there are no less than seven million minute
perspirating tubes, each one fourth of an inch long. If all these were
united in one length, they would extend twenty-eight miles. These
minute tubes are lined with capillary blood-vessels, which are
constantly sending out not only carbonic acid, but other gases and
particles of decayed matter. The skin and lungs together, in one day
and night, throw out three quarters of a pound of charcoal as carbonic
acid, beside other gases and water.

While the bodies of men and animals are filling the air with the
poisonous carbonic acid, and using up the life-giving oxygen, the trees
and plants are performing an exactly contrary process; for they are
absorbing carbonic acid and giving out oxygen. Thus, by a wonderful
arrangement of the beneficent Creator, a constant equilibrium is
preserved. What animals use is provided by vegetables, and what
vegetables require is furnished by animals; and all goes on, day and
night, without care or thought of man.

The human race in its infancy was placed in a mild and genial clime,
where each separate family dwelt in tents, and breathed, both day and
night, the pure air of heaven. And when they became scattered abroad
to colder climes, the open fire-place secured a full supply of pure
air. But civilization has increased economies and conveniences far
ahead of the knowledge needed by the common people for their healthful
use. Tight sleeping-rooms, and close, air-tight stoves, are now starving
and poisoning more than one half of this nation. It seems impossible
to make people know their danger. And the remedy for this is the light
of knowledge and intelligence which it is woman's special mission to
bestow, as she controls and regulates the ministries of a home.

The poisoning process is thus exhibited in Mrs. Stowe's "House and
Home Papers," and can not be recalled too often:

"No other gift of God, so precious, so inspiring, is treated with such
utter irreverence and contempt in the calculations of us mortals as
this same air of heaven. A sermon on oxygen, if we had a preacher who
understood the subject, might do more to repress sin than the most
orthodox discourse to show when and how and why sin came. A minister
gets up in a crowded lecture-room, where the mephitic air almost makes
the candles burn blue, and bewails the deadness of the church--the
church the while, drugged by the poisoned air, growing sleepier and
sleepier, though they feel dreadfully wicked for being so.

"Little Jim, who, fresh from his afternoon's ramble in the fields,
last evening said his prayers dutifully, and lay down to sleep in a
most Christian frame, this morning sits up in bed with his hair
bristling with crossness, strikes at his nurse, and declares he won't
say his prayers--that he don't want to be good. The simple difference
is, that the child, having slept in a close box of a room, his brain
all night fed by poison, is in a mild state of moral insanity. Delicate
women remark that it takes them till eleven or twelve o'clock to get
up their strength in the morning. Query, Do they sleep with closed
windows and doors, and with heavy bed-curtains?

"The houses built by our ancestors were better ventilated in certain
respects than modern ones, with all their improvements. The great
central chimney, with its open fire-places in the different rooms,
created a constant current which carried off foul and vitiated air.
In these days, how common is it to provide rooms with only a flue for
a stove! This flue is kept shut in summer, and in winter opened only
to admit a close stove, which burns away the vital portion of the air
quite as fast as the occupants breathe it away. The sealing up of
fire-places and introduction of air-tight stoves may, doubtless, be
a saving of fuel; it saves, too, more than that; in thousands and
thousands of cases it has saved people from all further human wants,
and put an end forever to any needs short of the six feet of narrow
earth which are man's only inalienable property. In other words, since
the invention of air-tight stoves, thousands have died of slow poison.

"It is a terrible thing to reflect upon, that our northern winters
last from November to May, six long months, in which many families
confine themselves to one room, of which every window-crack has been
carefully calked to make it air-tight, where an air-tight stove keeps
the atmosphere at a temperature between eighty and ninety; and the
inmates, sitting there with all their winter clothes on, become
enervated both by the heat and by the poisoned air, for which there
is no escape but the occasional opening of a door.

"It is no wonder that the first result of all this is such a delicacy
of skin and lungs that about half the inmates are obliged to give up
going into the open air during the six cold months, because they
invariably catch cold if they do so. It is no wonder that the cold
caught about the first of December has by the first of March become
a fixed consumption, and that the opening of the spring, which ought
to bring life and health, in so many cases brings death.

"We hear of the lean condition in which the poor bears emerge from
their six months' wintering, during which they subsist on the fat which
they have acquired the previous summer. Even so, in our long winters,
multitudes of delicate people subsist on the daily waning strength
which they acquired in the season when windows and doors were open,
and fresh air was a constant luxury. No wonder we hear of spring fever
and spring biliousness, and have thousands of nostrums for clearing
the blood in the spring. All these things are the pantings and
palpitations of a system run down under slow poison, unable to get a
step further.

"Better, far better, the old houses of the olden time, with their great
roaring fires, and their bed-rooms where the snow came in and the
wintry winds whistled. Then, to be sure, you froze your back while you
burned your face, your water froze nightly in your pitcher, your breath
congealed in ice-wreaths on the blankets, and you could write your
name on the pretty snow-wreath that had sifted in through the
window-cracks. But you woke full of life and vigor, you looked out
into the whirling snow-storms without a shiver, and thought nothing
of plunging through drifts as high as your head on your daily way to
school. You jingled in sleighs, you snow-balled, you lived in snow
like a snow-bird, and your blood coursed and tingled, in full tide of
good, merry, real life, through your veins--none of the slow-creeping,
black blood which clogs the brain and lies like a weight on the vital
wheels!"

To illustrate the effects of this poison, the horrors of "the Black
Hole of Calcutta" are often referred to, where one hundred and forty-six
men were crowded into a room only eighteen feet square with but two
small windows, and in a hot climate. After a night of such horrible
torments as chill the blood to read, the morning showed a pile of one
hundred and twenty-three dead men and twenty-three half dead that were
finally recovered only to a life of weakness and suffering.

In another case, a captain of the steamer Londonderry, in 1848, from
sheer ignorance of the consequences, in a storm, shut up his passengers
in a tight room without windows. The agonies, groans, curses, and
shrieks that followed were horrible. The struggling mass finally burst
the door, and the captain found seventy-two of the two hundred already
dead; while others, with blood starting from their eyes and ears, and
their bodies in convulsions, were restored, many only to a life of
sickness and debility.

It is ascertained by experiments that breathing bad air tends so to
reduce all the processes of the body, that less oxygen is demanded and
less carbonic acid sent out. This, of course, lessens the vitality and
weakens the constitution; and it accounts for the fact that a person
of full health, accustomed to pure air, suffers from bad air far more
than those who are accustomed to it. The body of strong and healthy
persons demands more oxygen, and throws off more carbonic acid, and
is distressed when the supply fails. But the one reduced by bad air
feels little inconvenience, because all the functions of life are so
slow that less oxygen is needed, and less carbonic acid thrown out.
And the sensibilities being deadened, the evil is not felt. This
provision of nature prolongs many lives, though it turns vigorous
constitutions into feeble ones. Were it not for this change in the
constitution, thousands in badly ventilated rooms and houses would
come to a speedy death.

One of the results of unventilated rooms is _scrofula_, A distinguished
French physician, M. Baudeloque, states that:

"The repeated respiration of the same atmosphere is _the_ cause of
scrofula. If there be entirely pure air, there may be bad food, bad
clothing, and want of personal cleanliness, but scrofulous disease can
not exist. This disease _never_ attacks persons who pass their lives in
the open air, and always manifests itself when they abide in air which
is unrenewed. _Invariably_ it will be found that a truly scrofulous
disease is caused by vitiated air; and it is not necessary that there
should be a prolonged stay in such an atmosphere. Often, several hours
each day is sufficient. Thus persons may live in the most healthy
country, pass most of the day in the open air, and yet become scrofulous
by sleeping in a close room where the air is not renewed. This is the
case with many shepherds who pass their nights in small huts with no
opening but a door closed tight at night."

The same writer illustrates this, by the history of a French village
where the inhabitants all slept in close, unventilated houses. Nearly
all were seized with scrofula, and many families became wholly extinct,
their last members dying "rotten with scrofula." A fire destroyed a
large part of this village. Houses were then built to secure pure air,
and scrofula disappeared from the part thus rebuilt.

We are informed by medical writers that defective ventilation is one
great cause of diseased joints, as well as of diseases of the eyes,
ears, and skin.

Foul air is the leading cause of tubercular and scrofulous consumption,
so very common in our country. Dr, Guy, in his examination before
public health commissioners in Great Britain, says: "Deficient
ventilation I believe to be more fatal than _all other causes_ put
together." He states that consumption is twice as common among
tradesmen as among the gentry, owing to the bad ventilation of their
stores and dwellings.

Dr. Griscom, in his work on Uses and Abuses of Air, says:

"Food carried from the stomach to the blood can not become _nutritive_
till it is properly oxygenated in the lungs; so that a small quantity of
food, even if less wholesome, may be made nutritive by pure air as it
passes through the lungs. But the best of food can not be changed into
nutritive blood till it is vitalized by pure air in the lungs."

And again:

"To those who have the care and instruction of the rising
generation--the future fathers and mothers of men--this subject of
ventilation commends itself with an interest surpassing every other.
Nothing can more convincingly establish the belief in the existence
of something vitally wrong in the habits and circumstances of civilized
life than the appalling fact that _one fourth_ of all who are born die
before reaching the fifth year, and _one half_ the deaths of mankind
occur under the twentieth year. Let those who have these things in
charge answer to their own consciences how they discharge their duty in
supplying to the young a _pure atmosphere_, which is the _first_
requisite for _healthy bodies_ and _sound minds_."

On the subject of infant mortality the experience of savages should
teach the more civilized. Professor Brewer, who traveled extensively
among the Indians of our western territories, states: "I have rarely
seen a sick boy among the Indians." Catlin, the painter, who resided
and traveled so much among these people, states that infant mortality
is very small among them, the reason, of course, being abundant exercise
and pure air.

Dr. Dio Lewis, whose labors in the cause of health are well known, in
his very useful work, _Weak Lungs and How to Make them Strong_, says:

"As a medical man I have visited thousands of sickrooms, and have not
found in _one in a hundred_ of them a pure atmosphere. I have often
returned from church doubting whether I had not committed a sin in
exposing myself so long to its poisonous air. There are in our great
cities churches costing $50,000, in the construction of which, not
fifty cents were expended in providing means for ventilation. Ten
thousand dollars for ornament, but not ten cents for pure air!

"Unventilated parlors, with gas-burners, (each consuming as much oxygen
as several men,) made as tight as possible, and a party of ladies and
gentlemen spending half the night in them! In 1861, I visited a
legislative hall, the legislature being in session. I remained half
an hour in the most impure air I ever breathed. Our school-houses are,
some of them, so vile in this respect, that I would prefer to have my
son remain in utter ignorance of books rather than to breathe, six
hours every day, such a poisonous atmosphere. Theatres and concert-rooms
are so foul that only reckless people continue to visit them. Twelve
hours in a railway-car exhausts one, not by the journeying, but because
of the devitalized air. While crossing the ocean in a Cunard steamer,
I was amazed that men who knew enough to construct such ships did not
know enough to furnish air to the passengers. The distress of
sea-sickness is greatly intensified by the sickening air of the ship.
Were carbonic acid _only black_, what a contrast there would be
between our hotels in their elaborate ornament!"

"Some time since I visited an establishment where one hundred and fifty
girls, in a single room, were engaged in needle-work. Pale-faced, and
with low vitality and feeble circulation, they were unconscious that
they were breathing air that at once produced in me dizziness and a
sense of suffocation. If I had remained a week with, them, I should,
by reduced vitality, have become unconscious of the vileness of the
air!"

There is a prevailing prejudice against _night air_ as unhealthful
to be admitted into sleeping-rooms, which is owing wholly to sheer
ignorance. In the night every body necessarily breathes night air and
no other. When admitted from without into a sleeping-room it is colder,
and therefore heavier, than the air within, so it sinks to the bottom
of the room and forces out an equal quantity of the impure air, warmed
and vitiated by passing through the lungs of inmates. Thus the question
is, Shall we shut up a chamber and breathe night air vitiated with
carbonic acid or night air that is pure? The only real difficulty about
night air is, that usually it is damper, and therefore colder and more
likely to chill. This is easily prevented by sufficient bed-clothing.

One other very prevalent mistake is found even in books written by
learned men. It is often thought that carbonic acid, being heavier
than common air, sinks to the floor of sleeping-rooms, so that the low
trundle-beds for children should not be used. This is all a mistake;
for, as a fact, in close sleeping-rooms the purest air is below and
the most impure above. It is true that carbonic acid is heavier than
common air, when pure; but this it rarely is except in chemical
experiments. It is the property of all gases, as well as of the two
(oxygen and nitrogen) composing the atmosphere, that when brought
together they always are entirely mixed, each being equally diffused
exactly as it would be if alone. Thus the carbonic acid from the skin
and lungs, being warmed in the body, rises as does the common air,
with which it mixes, toward the top of a room; so that usually there
is more carbonic acid at the top than at the bottom of a room.
[Footnote: Prof. Brewer, of the Tale Scientific School, says: "As a
fact, often demonstrated by analysis, there is generally more carbonic
acid near the ceiling than near the floor."] Both common air and
carbonic acid expand and become lighter in the same proportions; that
is, for every degree of added heat they expand at the rate of 1/480
of their bulk.

Here, let it be remembered, that in ill-ventilated rooms the carbonic
acid is not the only cause of disease. Experiments seem to prove that
other matter thrown out of the body, through the lungs and skin, is
as truly excrement and in a state of decay as that ejected from the
bowels, and as poisonous to the animal system. Carbonic acid has no
odor; but we are warned by the disagreeable effluvia of close
sleeping-rooms of the other poison thus thrown into the air from the
skin and lungs. There is one provision of nature that is little
understood, which saves the lives of thousands living in unventilated
houses; and that is, the passage of pure air inward and impure air
outward through the pores of bricks, wood, stone, and mortar. Were
such dwellings changed to tin, which is not thus porous, in less than
a week thousands and tens of thousands would be in danger of perishing
by suffocation.

These statements give some idea of the evils to be remedied. But the
most difficult point is _how_ to secure the remedy. For often the
attempt to secure pure air by one class of persons brings chills,
colds, and disease on another class, from mere ignorance or
mismanagement.

To illustrate this, it must be borne in mind that those who live in
warm, close, and unventilated rooms are much more liable to take cold
from exposure to draughts and cold air than those of vigorous vitality
accustomed to breathe pure air.

Thus the strong and healthy husband, feeling the want of pure air in
the night, and knowing its importance, keeps windows open and makes
such draughts that the wife, who lives all day in a close room and
thus is low in vitality, can not bear the change, has colds, and
sometimes perishes a victim to wrong modes of ventilation.

So, even in health-establishments, the patients will pass most of their
days and nights in badly-ventilated rooms. But at times the physician,
or some earnest patient, insists on a mode of ventilation that brings
more evil than good to the delicate inmates.

The grand art of ventilating houses is by some method that will empty
rooms of the vitiated air and bring in a supply of pure air _by small
and imperceptible currents_.

But this important duty of a Christian woman is one that demands more
science, care, and attention than almost any other; and yet, to prepare
her for this duty has never been any part of female education. Young
women are taught to draw mathematical diagrams and to solve astronomical
problems; but few, if any, of them are taught to solve the problem of
a house constructed to secure pure and moist air by day and night for
all its inmates.

The heating and management of the air we breathe is one of the most
complicated problems of domestic economy, as will be farther illustrated
in the succeeding chapter; and yet it is one of which, most American
women are profoundly ignorant.




IV.

SCIENTIFIC DOMESTIC VENTILATION.

We have seen in the preceding pages the process through which the air
is rendered unhealthful by close rooms and want of ventilation. Every
person inspires air about twenty times each minute, using half a pint
each time. At this rate, every pair of lungs vitiates one hogshead of
air every hour. The membrane that lines the multitudinous air-cells
of the lungs in which the capillaries are, should it be united in one
sheet, would cover the floor of a room twelve feet square. Every breath
brings a surface of air in contact with this extent of capillaries,
by which the air inspired gives up most of its oxygen and receives
carbonic acid in its stead. These facts furnish a guide for the proper
ventilation of rooms. Just in proportion to the number of persons in
a room or a house, should be the amount of air brought in and carried
out by arrangements for ventilation. But how rarely is this rule
regarded in building houses or in the care of families by housekeepers!

The evils resulting from the substitution of stoves instead of the
open fireplace, have led scientific and benevolent men to contrive
various modes of supplying pure air to both public and private houses.
But as yet little has been accomplished, except for a few of the more
intelligent and wealthy. The great majority of the American people,
owing to sheer ignorance, are, for want of pure air, being poisoned
and starved; the result being weakened constitutions, frequent disease,
and shortened life.

Whenever a family-room is heated by an open fire, it is duly ventilated,
as the impure air is constantly passing off through the chimney, while,
to supply the vacated space, the pure air presses in through the cracks
of doors, windows, and floors. No such supply is gained for rooms
warmed by stoves. And yet, from mistaken motives of economy, as well
as from ignorance of the resulting evils, multitudes of householders
are thus destroying health and shortening life, especially in regard
to women and children who spend most of their time within-doors.

The most successful modes of making "a healthful home" by a full supply
of pure air to every inmate, will now be described and illustrated.

It is the common property of both air and water to expand, become
lighter and rise, just in proportion as they are heated; and therefore
it is the invariable law that cool air sinks, thus replacing the warmer
air below. Thus, whenever cool air enters a warm room, it sinks downward
and takes the place of an equal amount of the warmer air, which is
constantly tending upward and outward. This principle of all fluids
is illustrated by the following experiment:

Take a glass jar about a foot high and three inches in diameter, and
with a wire to aid in placing it aright, sink a small bit of lighted
candle so as to stand in the centre at the bottom. (Fig. 28.) The
candle will heat the air of the jar, which will rise a little on one
side, while the colder air without will begin falling on the other
side. These two currents will so conflict as finally to cease, and
then the candle, having no supply of oxygen from fresh air, will begin
to go out. Insert a bit of stiff paper so as to divide the mouth of
the jar, and instantly the cold and warm air are not in conflict as
before, because a current is formed each side of the paper; the cold
air descending on one aide and the warm air ascending the other side,
as indicated by the arrows. As long as the paper remains, the candle
will burn, and as soon as it is removed, it will begin to go out, and
can be restored by again inserting the paper.

[Illustration: Fig. 28]
[Illustration: Fig. 29]

This illustrates the mode by which coal-mines are ventilated when
filled with carbonic acid. A shaft divided into two passages, (Fig.
29,) is let down into the mine, where the air is warmer than the outside
air. Immediately the colder air outside presses down into the mine,
through the passage which is highest, being admitted by the escape of
an equal quantity of the warmer air, which rises through the lower
passage of the shaft, this being the first available opening for it
to rise through. A current is thus created, which continues as long
as the inside air is warmer than that without the mine, and no longer.
Sometimes a fire is kindled in the mine, in order to continue or
increase the warmth, and consequent upward current of its air.

This illustrates one of the cases where a "wise woman that buildeth
her house" is greatly needed. For, owing to the ignorance of architects,
house-builders, and men in general, they have been building
school-houses, dwelling-houses, churches, and colleges, with the most
absurd and senseless contrivances for ventilation, and all from not
applying this simple principle of science. On this point, Prof. Brewer,
of the Scientific School of Yale College, writes thus:

"I have been in public buildings, (I have one in mind now, filled with
dormitories,) which cost half a million, where they attempted to
ventilate every room by a flue, long and narrow, built into partition
walls, and extending up into the capacious garret of the fifth story.
Every room in the building had one such flue, with an opening into it
at the floor and at the ceiling. It is needless to say that the whole
concern was entirely useless. Had these flues been of proper
proportions, and properly divided, the desired ventilation would have
been secured."

And this piece of ignorant folly was perpetrated in the midst of learned
professors, teaching the laws of fluids and the laws of health.

A learned physician also thus wrote to the author of this chapter:
"The subject of the ventilation of our dwelling-houses is one of the
most important questions of our times. How many thousands are victims
to a slow suicide and murder, the chief instrument of which is want
of ventilation! How few are aware of the fact that every person, every
day, vitiates thirty-three hogsheads of the air, and that each
inspiration takes one fifth of the oxygen, and returns as much carbonic
acid, from every pair of lungs in a room! How few understand that after
air has received ten per cent of this fatal gas, if drawn into the
lungs, it can no longer take carbonic acid from the capillaries! No
wonder there is so much impaired nervous and muscular energy, so much
scrofula, tubercles, catarrhs, dyspepsia, and typhoid diseases. I hope
you can do much to remedy the poisonous air of thousands and thousands
of stove-heated rooms."

In a cold climate and wintry weather, the grand impediment to
ventilating rooms by opening doors or windows is the dangerous currents
thus produced, which are so injurious to the delicate ones that for
their sake it can not be done. Then, also, as a matter of economy, the
poor can not afford to practice a method which carries off the heat
generated by their stinted store of fuel. Even in a warm season and
climate, there are frequent periods when the air without is damp and
chilly, and yet at nearly the same temperature as that in the house.
At such times, the opening of windows often has little effect in
emptying a room of vitiated air. The ventilating-flues, such as are
used in mines, have, in such cases, but little influence; for it is
only when outside air is colder that a current can be produced within
by this method.

The most successful mode of ventilating a house is by creating a current
of warm air in a flue, into which an opening is made at both the top
and the bottom of a room, while a similar opening for outside air is
made at the opposite side of the room. This is the mode employed in
chemical laboratories for removing smells and injurious gases.

The laboratory-closet is closed with glazed doors, and has an opening
to receive pure air through a conductor from without. The stove or
furnace within has a pipe which joins a larger cast-iron chimney-pipe,
which is warmed by the smoke it receives from this and other fires.
This cast-iron pipe is surrounded by a brick flue, through which air
passes from below to be warmed by the pipe, and thus an upward current
of warm air is created. Openings are then made at the top and bottom
of the laboratory-closet into the warm-air flue, and the gases and
smells are pressed by the colder air into this flue, and are carried
off in the current of warm air.

The same method is employed in the dwelling-house shown in a preceding
chapter. A cast-iron pipe is made in sections, which are to be united,
and the whole fastened at top and bottom in the centre of the warm-air
flue by ears extending to the bricks, and fastened when the flue is
in process of building. Projecting openings to receive the pipes of
the furnace, the laundry stove, and two stoves in each story, should
be provided, which must be closed when not in use. A large opening is
to be made into the warm-air fine, and through this the kitchen
stove-pipe is to pass, and be joined to the cast-iron chimney-pipe.
Thus the smoke of the kitchen stove will warm the iron chimney-pipe,
and this will warm the air of the flue, causing a current upward, and
this current will draw the heat and smells of cooking out of the kitchen
into the opening of the warm-air flue. Every room surrounding the
chimney has an opening at the top and bottom into the warm-air Hue for
ventilation, as also have the bathroom and water-closets.

[Illustration: Fig. 30.]

The writer has examined the methods most employed at the present time,
which are all modifications of the two modes here described. One is
that of Robinson, patented by a Boston company, which is a modification
of the mining mode. It consists of the two ventilating tubes, such as
are employed in mines, united in one shaft with a roof to keep out
rain, and a valve to regulate the entrance and exit of air, as
illustrated in Fig. 30. This method works well in certain circumstances,
but fails so often as to prove very unreliable. Another mode is that
of Ruttan, which is effected by heating air. This also has certain
advantages and disadvantages. But the mode adopted for the preceding
cottage plan is free from the difficulties of both the above methods,
while it will surely ventilate every room in the house, both by day
and night, and at all seasons, without any risk to health, and requiring
no attention or care from the family.

By means of a very small amount of fuel in the kitchen stove, to be
described hereafter, the whole house can be ventilated, and all the
cooking done both in warm and cold weather. This stove will also warm
the whole house, in the Northern States, eight or nine months in the
year. Two Franklin stoves, in addition, will warm the whole house
during the three or four remaining coldest months.

In a warm climate or season, by means of the non-conducting castings,
the stove will ventilate the house and do all the cooking, without
imparting heat or smells to any part of the house except the
stove-closet.

At the close of this volume, drawings, prepared by Mr. Lewis Leeds,
are given, more fully to illustrate this mode of warming and
ventilation, and in so plain and simple a form that any intelligent
woman who has read this work can see that the plan is properly executed,
even with workmen so entirely ignorant on this important subject as
are most house-builders, especially in the newer territories. In the
same article, directions are given as to the best modes of ventilating
houses that are already built without any arrangements for ventilation.




V.
THE CONSTRUCTION AND CARE OF STOVES, FURNACES, AND CHIMNEYS.


If all American housekeepers could be taught how to select and manage
the most economical and convenient apparatus for cooking and for warming
a house, many millions now wasted by ignorance and neglect would be
saved. Every woman should be taught the scientific principles in regard
to heat, and then their application to practical purposes, for her own
benefit, and also to enable her to train her children and servants in
this important duty of home life on which health and comfort so much
depend.

The laws that regulate the generation, diffusion, and preservation of
heat as yet are a sealed mystery to thousands of young women who imagine
they are completing a suitable education in courses of instruction
from which most that is practical in future domestic life is wholly
excluded. We therefore give a brief outline of some of the leading
scientific principles which every housekeeper should understand and
employ, in order to perform successfully one of her most important
duties.

Concerning the essential nature of heat, and its intimate relations
with the other great natural forces, light, electricity, etc., we shall
not attempt to treat, but shall, for practical purposes, assume it to
be a separate and independent force. Heat or caloric, then, has certain
powers or principles. Let us consider them:

First, we find _Conduction_, by which heat passes from one particle
to another next to it; as when one end of a poker is warmed by placing
the other end in the fire. The bodies which allow this power free
course are called conductors, and those which do not are named
non-conductors, Metals are good conductors; feathers, wool, and furs
are poor conductors; and water, air, and gases are non-conductors.

Another principle of heat is _Convection_, by which water, air, and
gases are warmed. This is, literally, the process of _conveying_ heat
from one portion of a fluid body to another by currents resulting from
changes of temperature. It is secured by bringing one portion of a
liquid or gas into contact with a heated surface, whereby it becomes
lighter and expanded in volume. In consequence, the cooler and heavier
particles above pressing downward, the lighter ones rise upward, when
the former, being heated, rise in their turn, and give place to others
again descending from above. Thus a constant motion of currents and
interchange of particles is produced until, as in a vessel of water, the
whole body comes to an equal temperature. Air is heated in the same way.
In case of a hot stove, the air that touches it is heated, becomes
lighter, and rises, giving place to cooler and heavier particles, which,
when heated, also ascend. It is owing to this process that the air of a
room is warmest at the top and coolest at the bottom. It is owing to
this principle, also, that water and air can not be heated by fire from
above. For the particles of these bodies, being non-conductors, do not
impart heat to each other; and when the warmest are at the top, they can
not take the place of cooler and heavier ones below.

Another principle of heat (which it shares with light) is _Radiation_,
by which all things send out heat to surrounding cooler bodies. Some
bodies will absorb radiated heat, others will reflect it, and others
allow it to pass through them without either absorbing or reflecting
Thus, black and rough substances absorb heat, (or light,) colored and
smooth articles reflect it, while air allows it to pass through without
either absorbing or reflecting. It is owing to this, that rough and
black vessels boil water sooner than smooth and light-colored ones.

Another principle is _Reflection_, by which heat radiated to a
surface is turned back from it when not absorbed or allowed to pass
through; just as a ball rebounds from a wall; just as sound is thrown
back from a hill, making echo; just as rays of light are reflected
from a mirror. And, as with light, the rays of heat are always reflected
from a surface in an angle exactly corresponding to the direction in
which it strikes that surface. Thus, if heated are comes to an object
perpendicularly--that is, at right angles, it will be reflected back
in the same line. If it strikes obliquely, it is reflected obliquely,
at an angle with the surface precisely the same as the angle with which
it first struck. And, of course, if it moves toward the surface and
comes upon it in a line having so small an angle with it as to be
almost parallel with it, the heated air is spread wide and diffused
through a larger space than when the angles are greater and the width
of reflection less.

[Illustration: Fig. 31.]
[Illustration: Fig. 32.]
[Illustration: Fig. 33.]

The simplest mode of warming a house and cooking food is by radiated
heat from fires; but this is the most wasteful method, as respects
time, labor, and expense. The most convenient, economical, and
labor-saving mode of employing heat is by convection, as applied in
stoves and furnaces. But for want of proper care and scientific
knowledge this method has proved very destructive to health. When
warming and cooking were done by open fires, houses were well supplied
with pure air, as is rarely the case in rooms heated by stoves. For
such is the prevailing ignorance on this subject that, as long as
stoves save labor and warm the air, the great majority of people,
especially among the poor, will use them in ways that involve
debilitated constitutions and frequent disease.

The most common modes of cooking, where open fires are relinquished,
are by the range and the cooking-stove. The range is inferior to the
stove in these respects: it is less economical, demanding much more
fuel; it endangers the dress of the cook while standing near for various
operations; it requires more stooping than the stove while cooking;
it will not keep a fire all night, as do the best stoves; it will not
burn wood and coal equally well; and lastly, if it warms the kitchen
sufficiently in winter, it is too warm for summer. Some prefer it
because the fumes of cooking can be carried off; but stoves properly
arranged accomplish this equally well.

After extensive inquiry and many personal experiments, the author has
found a cooking-stove constructed on true scientific principles, which
unites convenience, comfort, and economy in a remarkable manner. Of
this stove, drawings and descriptions will now be given, as the best
mode of illustrating the practical applications of these principles
to the art of cooking, and to show how much American women have suffered
and how much they have been imposed upon for want of proper knowledge
in this branch of their profession. And every woman can understand
what follows with much less effort than young girls at high-schools
give to the first problems of Geometry--for which they will never have
any practical use, while attention to this problem of home affairs
will cultivate the intellect quite as much as the abstract reasonings
of Algebra and Geometry.,

[Illustration: Fig. 34.]

Fig. 34 represents a portion of the interior of this cooking-stove.
First, notice the fire-box, which has corrugated (literally, wrinkled)
sides, by which space is economized, so that as much heating surface
is secured as if they were one third larger; as the heat radiates from
every part of the undulating surface, which is one third greater in
superficial extent than if it were plane. The shape of the fire-box
also secures more heat by having oblique sides--which radiate more
effectively into the oven beneath than if they were perpendicular, as
illustrated below--while also it is sunk into the oven, so as to radiate
from three instead of from two sides, as in most other stoves, the
front of whose fire-boxes with their grates are built so as to be the
front of the stove itself.

[Illustration: Fig 35. Model Stove]
[Illustration: Fig 36. Ordinary Stove]

The oven is the space under and around the back and front sides of the
fire-box. The oven-bottom is not introduced in the diagram, but it is
a horizontal plate between the fire-box and what is represented as the
"flue-plate," which separates the oven from the bottom of the stove.
The top of the oven is the horizontal corrugated plate passing from
the rear edge of the fire-box to the back flues. These are three in
number--the back centre-flue, which is closed to the heat and smoke
coming over the oven from the fire-box by a damper--and the two back
corner-flues. Down these two corner-flues passes the current of hot
air and smoke, having first drawn across the corrugated oven-top. The
arrows show its descent through these flues, from which it obliquely
strikes and passes over the flue-plate, then under it, and then out
through the centre back-flue, which is open at the bottom, up into the
smoke-pipe.

The flue-plate is placed obliquely, to accumulate heat by forcing and
compression; for the back space where the smoke enters from the
corner-flues is largest, and decreases toward the front, so that the
hot current is compressed in a narrow space, between the oven-bottom
and the flue-plate at the place where the bent arrows are seen. Here
again it enters a wider space, under the flue-plate, and proceeds to
another narrow one, between the flue-plate and the bottom of the stove,
and thus is compressed and retained longer than if not impeded by these
various contrivances. The heat and smoke also strike the plate
obliquely, and thus, by reflection from its surface, impart more heat
than if the passage was a horizontal one.

The external radiation is regulated by the use of nonconducting plaster
applied to the flue-plate and to the sides of the corner-flues, so
that the heat is prevented from radiating in any direction except
toward the oven. The doors, sides, and bottom of the stove are lined
with tin casings, which hold a stratum of air, also a non-conductor.
These are so arranged as to be removed whenever the weather becomes
cold, so that the heat may then radiate into the kitchen. The outer
edges of the oven are also similarly protected from loss of heat by
tin casings and air-spaces, and the oven-doors opening at the front
of the store are provided with the same economical savers of heat.
High tin covers placed on the top prevent the heat from radiating above
the stove. These are exceedingly useful, as the space under them is
well heated and arranged for baking, for heating irons, and many other
incidental necessities. Cake and pies can be baked on the top, while
the oven is used for bread or for meats. When all the casings and
covers are on, almost all the heat is confined within the stove, and
whenever heat for the room is wanted, opening the front oven-doors
turns it out into the kitchen.

Another contrivance is that of ventilating-holes in the front doors,
through which fresh air is brought into the oven. This secures several
purposes: it carries off the fumes of cooking meats, and prevents the
mixing of flavors when different articles are cooked in the oven; it
drives the heat that accumulates between the fire-box and front doors
down around the oven, and equalizes its heat, so that articles need
not be moved while baking; and lastly, as the air passes through the
holes of the fire-box, it causes the burning of gases in the smoke,
and thus increases heat. When wood or bituminous coal is used,
perforated metal linings are put in the fire-box, and the result is
the burning of smoke and gases that otherwise would pass into the
chimney. This is a great discovery in the economy of fuel, which can
be applied in many ways.

Heretofore, most cooking-stoves have had dumping-grates, which are
inconvenient from the dust produced, are uneconomical in the use of
fuel, and disadvantageous from too many or too loose joints. But
recently this stove has been provided with a dumping-grate which
also will sift ashes, and can be cleaned without dust and the other
objectionable features of dumping-grates. A further account of this
stove, and the mode of purchasing and using it, will be given at the
close of the book.

Those who are taught to manage the stove properly keep the fire going
all night, and equally well with wood or coal, thus saving the expense
of kindling and the trouble of starting a new fire. When the fuel is
of good quality, all that is needed in the morning is to draw the
back-damper, snake the grate, and add more fuel.

Another remarkable feature of this store is the extension-top, on which
is placed a water reservoir, constantly heated by the smoke as it
passes from the stove, through one or two uniting passages, to the
smoke-pipe. Under this is placed a closet for warming and keeping hot
the dishes, vegetables, meats, etc., while preparing for dinner. It
is also very useful in drying fruit; and when large baking is required,
a small appended pot for charcoal turns it into a fine large oven,
that bakes as nicely as a brick oven.

Another useful appendage is a common tin oven, in which roasting can
be done in front of the stove, the oven-doors being removed for the
purpose. The roast will be done as perfectly as by an open fire.

This stove is furnished with pipes for heating water, like the
water-back of ranges, and these can be taken or left out at pleasure.
So also the top covers, the baking-stool and pot, and the summer-back,
bottom, and side-casings can be used or omitted as preferred.

[Illustration Fig 37]

Fig. 37 exhibits the stove completed, with all its appendages, as they
might be employed in cooking for a large number.

Its capacity, convenience, and economy as a stove may be estimated by
the following fact: With proper management of dampers, one
ordinary-sized coal-hod of anthracite coal will, for twenty-four hours,
keep the stove running, keep seventeen gallons of water hot at all
hours, bake pies and puddings in the warm closet, heat flat-irons under
the back cover, boil tea-kettle and one pot under the front cover,
bake bread in the oven, and cook a turkey in the tin roaster in front.
The author has numerous friends, who, after trying the best ranges,
have dismissed them for this stove, and in two or three years cleared
the whole expense by the saving of fuel.

The remarkable durability of this stove is another economic feature.
For in addition to its fine castings and nice-fitting workmanship, all
the parts liable to burn out are so protected by linings, and other
contrivances easily renewed, that the stove itself may pass from one
generation to another, as do ordinary chimneys. The writer has visited
in families where this stove had been in constant use for eighteen and
twenty years, and was still as good as new. In most other families the
stoves are broken, burnt-out, or thrown aside for improved patterns
every four, five, or six years, and sometimes, to the knowledge of the
writer, still oftener.

Another excellent point is that, although it is so complicated in its
various contrivances as to demand intelligent management in order to
secure all its advantages, it also can be used satisfactorily even
when the mistress and maid are equally careless and ignorant of its
distinctive merits. To such it offers all the advantages of ordinary
good stoves, and is extensively used by those who take no pains to
understand and apply its peculiar advantages.

But the writer has managed the stove herself in all the details of
cooking, and is confident that any housekeeper of common sense, who
is instructed properly, and who also aims to have her kitchen affairs
managed with strict economy, can easily train any servant who is willing
to learn, so as to gain the full advantages offered. And even without
any instructions at all, except the printed directions sent with the
stove, an intelligent woman can, by due attention, though not without,
both manage it, and teach her children and servants to do likewise.
And whenever this stove has failed to give the highest satisfaction,
it has been, either because the housekeeper was not apprized of its
peculiarities, or because she did not give sufficient attention to the
matter, or was not able or willing to superintend and direct its
management.

The consequence has been that, in families where this stove has been
understood and managed aright, it has saved nearly one half of the
fuel that would be used in ordinary stoves, constructed with the usual
disregard of scientific and economic laws. And it is because we know
this particular stove to be convenient, reliable, and economically
efficient beyond ordinary experience, in the important housekeeping
element of kitchen labor, that we devote to it so much space and pains
to describe its advantageous points.

CHIMNEYS.

One of the most serious evils in domestic life is often found in
chimneys that will not properly draw the smoke of a fire or stove.
Although chimneys have been building for a thousand years, the artisans
of the present day seem strangely ignorant of the true method of
constructing them so as always to carry smoke upward instead of
downward. It is rarely the case that a large house is built in which
there is not some flue or chimney which "will not draw." One of the
reasons why the stove described as excelling all others is sometimes
cast aside for a poorer one is, that it requires a properly constructed
chimney, and multitudes of women do not know how to secure it. The
writer in early life shed many a bitter tear, drawn forth by smoke
from an ill-constructed kitchen-chimney, and thousands all over the
land can report the same experience.

The following are some of the causes and the remedies for this evil.

The most common cause of poor chimney draughts is too large an opening
for the fireplace, either too wide or too high in front, or having too
large a throat for the smoke. In a lower story, the fireplace should
not be larger than thirty inches wide, twenty-five inches high, and
fifteen deep. In the story above, it should be eighteen inches square
and fifteen inches deep.

Another cause is too short a flue, and the remedy is to lengthen it.
As a general rule, the longer the flue the stronger the draught. But
in calculating the length of a flue, reference must be had to
side-flues, if any open into it. Where this is the case, the length
of the main flue is to be considered as extending only from the bottom
to the point where the upper flue joins it, and where the lower will
receive air from the upper flue. If a smoky flue can not be increased
in length, either by closing an upper flue or lengthening the chimney,
the fireplace must be contracted so that all the air near the fire
will be heated and thus pressed upward.

If a flue has more than one opening, in some cases it is impossible
to secure a good draught. Sometimes it will work well and sometimes
it will not. The only safe rule is to have a separate flue to each
fire.

Another cause of poor draughts is too tight a room, so that the cold
air from without can not enter to press the warm air up the chimney.
The remedy is to admit a small current of air from without.

Another cause is two chimneys in one room, or in rooms opening together,
in which the draught in one is much stronger than in the other. In
this case, the stronger draught will draw away from the weaker. The
remedy is, for each room to have a proper supply of outside air; or,
in a single room, to stop one of the chimneys.

Another cause is the too close vicinity of a hill or buildings higher
than the top of the chimney, and the remedy for this is to raise the
chimney.

Another cause is the descent, into unused fireplaces, of smoke from
other chimneys near. The remedy is to close the throat of the unused
chimney.

Another cause is a door opening toward the fireplace, on the same side
of the room, so that its draught passes along the wall and makes a
current that draws out the smoke. The remedy is to change the hanging
of the door so as to open another way.

Another cause is strong winds. The remedy is a turn-cap on top of the
chimney.

Another cause is the roughness of the inside of a chimney, or
projections which impede the passage of the smoke. Every chimney should
be built of equal dimensions from bottom to top, with no projections
into it, with as few bends as possible, and with the surface of the
inside as smooth as possible.

Another cause of poor draughts is openings into the chimney of chambers
for stove-pipes. The remedy is to close them, or insert stove-pipes
that are in use.

Another cause is the falling out of brick in some part of the chimney
so that outer air is admitted. The remedy is to close the opening.

The draught of a stove may be affected by most of these causes. It
also demands that the fireplace have a tight fire-board, or that the
throat he carefully filled. For neglecting this, many a good stove has
been thrown aside and a poor one taken in its place.

If all young women had committed to memory these causes of evil and
their remedies, many a badly-built chimney might have been cured, and
many smoke-drawn tears, sighs, ill-tempers, and irritating words
avoided.

But there are dangers in this direction which demand special attention.
Where one flue has two stoves or fireplaces, in rooms one above the
other, in certain states of the atmosphere, the lower room, being the
warmer, the colder air and carbonic acid in the room above will pass
down into the lower room through the opening for the stove or the
fireplace.

This occurred not long since in a boarding-school, when the gas in a
room above flowed into a lower one, and suffocated several to death.
This room had no mode of ventilation, and several persons slept in it,
and were thus stifled. Professor Brewer states a similar case in the
family of a relative. An anthracite stove was used in the upper room;
and on one still, close night, the gas from this stove descended through
the flue and the opening into a room below, and stifled two persons
to insensibility, though, by proper efforts, their lives were saved.
Many such cases have occurred where rooms have been thus filled with
poisonous gases, and servants and children destroyed, or their
constitutions injured, simply because housekeepers are not properly
instructed in this important branch of their profession.


FURNACES.

There is no improved mechanism in the economy of domestic life requiring
more intelligent management than furnaces. Let us then consider some
of the principles involved.

The earth is heated by radiation from the sun. The air is not warmed
by the passage of the sun's heat through it, but by convection from
the earth, in the same way that it is warmed by the surfaces of stoves.
The lower stratum of air is warmed by the earth and by objects which
have been warmed by radiated heat from the sun. The particles of air
thus heated expand, become lighter, and rise, being replaced by the
descent of the cooler and heavier particles from above, which, on being
warmed also rise, and give place to others. Owing to this process, the
air is warmest nearest the earth, and grows cooler as height increases.

The air has a strong attraction for water, and always holds a certain
quantity as invisible vapor. The warmer the air, the more moisture it
demands, and it will draw it from all objects within reach. The air
holds water according to its temperature. Thus, at fifty-two degrees,
Fahrenheit's thermometer, it holds half the moisture it can sustain;
but at thirty-six degrees, it will hold only one eighty-sixth part.
The earth and all plants and trees are constantly sending out moisture;
and when the air has received all it can hold, without depositing it
as dew, it is said to be _saturated_, and the point of temperature
at which dew begins to form, by condensation, upon the surface of the
earth and its vegetation, is called the _dew-point_. When air,
at a given temperature, has only forty per cent of the moisture it
requires for saturation, it is said to be dry. In a hot summer day,
the air will hold far more moisture than in cool days. In summer,
out-door air rarely holds less than half its volume of water. In 1838,
at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and New-Haven, Connecticut, at seventy
degrees, Fahrenheit, the air held eighty per cent of moisture.

In New Orleans, the air often retains ninety per cent of the moisture
it is capable of holding; and in cool days at the North, in foggy
weather, the air is sometimes wholly saturated.

When air holds all the moisture it can, without depositing dew, its
moisture is called 100. When it holds three fourths of this, it is
said to be at seventy-five per cent. When it holds only one half, it
is at fifty per cent. When it holds only one fourth, it is at
twenty-five per cent, etc.

Sanitary observers teach that the proper amount of moisture in the air
ranges from forty to seventy per cent of saturation.

Now, furnaces, which are of course used only in winter, receive outside
air at a low temperature, holding little moisture; This it sucks up,
like a sponge, from the walls and furniture of a house. If it is taken
into the human lungs, it draws much of its required moisture from the
body, often causing dryness of lips and throat, and painfully affecting
the lungs. Prof. Brewer, of the Scientific School of New-Haven, who
has experimented extensively on this subject, states that, while forty
per cent of moisture is needed in air to make it healthful, most stoves
and furnaces do not, by any contrivances, supply one half of this, or
not twenty per cent. He says most furnace-heated air is dryer than is
ever breathed in the hottest deserts of Sahara.

Thus, for want of proper instruction, most American housekeepers not
only poison their families with carbonic acid and starve them for want
of oxygen, but also diminish health and comfort for want of a due
supply of moisture in the air. And often when a remedy is sought, by
evaporating water in the furnace, it is without knowing that the amount
evaporated depends, not on the quantity of water in the vessel, but
on the extent of evaporating surface exposed to the air. A quart of
water in a wide shallow pan will give more moisture than two gallons
with a small surface exposed to heat.

There is also no little wise economy in expense attained by keeping
a proper supply of moisture in the air. For it is found that the body
radiates its heat less in moist than in dry air, so that a person feels
as warm at a lower temperature when the air has a proper supply of
moisture, as in a much higher temperature of dry air. Of course, less
fuel is needed to warm a house when water is evaporated in stove and
furnace-heated rooms. It is said by those who have experimented, that
the saving in fuel is twenty per cent when the air is duly supplied
with moisture.

There is a very ingenious instrument, called the hygrodeik, which
indicates the exact amount of moisture in the air. It consists of two
thermometers side by side, one of which has its bulb surrounded by
floss-silk wrapping, which is kept constantly wet by communication
with a cup of water near it. The water around the bulb evaporates just
in proportion to the heat of the air around it. The changing of water
to vapor draws heat from the nearest object, and this being the bulb
of the thermometer, the mercury is cooled and sinks. Then the difference
between the two thermometers shows the amount of moisture in the air
by a pointer on a dial-plate constructed by simple mechanism for this
purpose.

There is one very important matter in regard to the use of furnaces,
which is thus stated by Professor Brewer:

"I think it is a well-established fact that carbonic oxide will
pass through iron. It is always formed in great abundance in any
_anthracite_ fire, but especially in anthracite stoves and furnaces.
Moreover, furnaces _always_ leak, more or less; how much they leak
depending on the care and skill with which they are managed. Carbonic
oxide is much more poisonous than carbonic acid. Doubtless some carbonic
oxide finds its way into all furnace-heated houses, especially where
anthracite is used; the amount varying with the kind of furnace and its
management. As to how much escapes into a room, and its specific effect
upon the health of its occupants, we have no accurate data, no analysis
to show the quantity, and no observations to show the relation between
the quantity inhaled and the health of those exposed; all is mere
conjecture upon this point; but the inference is very strong that it has
a very injurious effect, producing headaches, weariness, and other
similar symptoms.

"Recent pamphlets lay the blame of all the bad effects of anthracite
furnaces and stoves to the carbonic oxide mingled in the air. I think
these pamphlets have a bad influence. _Excessive dryness_ also has bad
effects. So also the excessive heat in the evenings and coolness in the
mornings has a share in these evils. But how much in addition is owing
to carbonic oxide, we can not know, until we know something of the
actual amount of this gas in rooms, and as yet we know absolutely
nothing definite. In fact, it will be a difficult thing to _prove_."

There are other difficulties connected with furnaces which should be
considered. It is necessary to perfect health that an equal circulation
of the blood be preserved. The greatest impediment to this is keeping
the head warmer than the feet. This is especially to be avoided in a
nation where the brain is by constant activity drawing the blood from
the extremities. And nowhere is this more important than in schools,
churches, colleges, lecture and recitation-rooms, where the brain is
called into active exercise. And yet, furnace-heated rooms always keep
the feet in the coldest air, on cool floors, while the head is in the
warmest air.

Another difficulty is the fact that all bodies tend to radiate their
heat to each other, till an equal temperature exists. Thus, the human
body is constantly radiating its heat to the walls, floors, and cooler
bodies around. At the same time, a thermometer is affected in the same
way, radiating its heat to cooler bodies around, so that it always
marks a lower degree of heat than actually exists in the warm air
around it. Owing to these facts, the injected air of a furnace is
always warmer than is good for the lungs, and much warmer than is ever
needed in rooms warmed by radiation from fires or heated surfaces. The
cooler the air we inspire, the more oxygen is received, the faster the
blood circulates, and the greater is the vigor imparted to brain,
nerves, and muscles.

Scientific men have been contriving various modes of meeting these
difficulties, and at the close of this volume some results will be
given to aid a woman in selecting and managing the most healthful and
economical furnace, or in providing some better method of warming a
house. Some account will also be given of the danger involved in
gas-stoves, and some other recent inventions for cooking and heating.




VI.

HOME DECORATION.


Having duly arranged for the physical necessities of a healthful and
comfortable home, we next approach the important subject of _beauty_ in
reference to the decoration of houses. For while the aesthetic element
must be subordinate to the requirements of physical existence, and, as a
matter of expense, should be held of inferior consequence to means of
higher moral growth; it yet holds a place of great significance among
the influences which make home happy and attractive, which give it a
constant and wholesome power over the young, and contributes much to the
education of the entire household in refinement, intellectual
development, and moral sensibility.

Here we are met by those who tell us that of course they want their
houses handsome, and that, when they get money enough, they intend to
have them so, but at present they are too poor, and because they are
poor they dismiss the subject altogether, and live without any regard
to it.

We have often seen people who said that they could not afford to make
their houses beautiful, who had spent upon them, outside or in, an
amount of money which did not produce either beauty or comfort, and
which, if judiciously applied, might have made the house quite charming.

For example, a man, in building his house, takes a plan of an architect.
This plan includes, on the outside, a number of what Andrew Fairservice
called "curlywurlies" and "whigmaliries," which make the house neither
prettier nor more comfortable, and which take up a good deal of money.
We would venture to say that we could buy the chromo of Bierstadt's
"Sunset in the Yosemite Valley," and four others like it, for half the
sum that we have sometimes seen laid out on a very ugly, narrow, awkward
porch on the outside of a house. The only use of this porch was to
cost money, and to cause every body who looked at it to exclaim as
they went by, "What ever induced that man to put a thing like that on
the outside of his house?"

Then, again, in the inside of houses, we have seen a dwelling looking
very bald and bare, when a sufficient sum of money had been expended
on one article to have made the whole very pretty: and it has come
about in this way.

We will suppose the couple who own the house to be in the condition
in which people generally are after they have built a house--having
spent more than they could afford on the building itself, and yet
feeling themselves under the necessity of getting some furniture.
"Now," says the housewife, "I must at least have a parlor-carpet. We
must get that to begin with, and other things as we go on." She goes
to a store to look at carpets. The clerks are smiling and obliging,
and sweetly complacent. The storekeeper, perhaps, is a neighbor or a
friend, and after exhibiting various patterns, he tells her of a
Brussels carpet he is selling wonderfully cheap--actually a dollar
and a quarter less a yard than the usual price of Brussels, and the
reason is that it is an unfashionable pattern, and he has a good deal
of it, and wishes to close it off.

She looks at it and thinks it is not at all the kind of carpet she
meant to buy, but then it is Brussels, and so cheap! And as she
hesitates, her friend tells her that she will find it "cheapest in the
end--that one Brussels carpet will outlast three or four ingrains,"
etc., etc.

The result of all this is, that she buys the Brussels carpet, which,
with all its reduction in price, is one third dearer than the ingrain
would have been, and not half so pretty. When she comes home, she will
find that she has spent, we will say eighty dollars, for a very homely
carpet whose greatest merit it is an affliction to remember--namely,
that it will outlast three ordinary carpets. And because she has bought
this carpet she can not afford to paper the walls or put up any
window-curtains, and can not even begin to think of buying any pictures.

Now let us see what eighty dollars could have done for that room. We
will suppose, in the first place, she invests in thirteen rolls of
wall-paper of a lovely shade of buff, which will make the room look
sunshiny in the day-time, and light up brilliantly in the evening.
Thirteen rolls of good satin paper, at thirty-seven cents a roll,
expends four dollars and eighty-one cents. A maroon bordering, made
in imitation of the choicest French style, which can not at a distance
be told from it, can be bought for six cents a yard. This will bring
the paper to about five dollars and a half; and our friends will give
a day of their time to putting it on. The room already begins to look
furnished.

Then, let us cover the floor with, say, thirty yards of good matting,
at fifty cents a yard. This gives us a carpet for fifteen dollars. We
are here stopped by the prejudice that matting is not good economy,
because it wears out so soon. We humbly submit that it is precisely
the thing for a parlor, which is reserved for the reception-room of
friends, and for our own dressed leisure hours. Matting is not good
economy in a dining-room or a hard-worn sitting-room; but such a parlor
as we are describing is precisely the place where it answers to the
very best advantage.

We have in mind one very attractive parlor which has been, both for
summer and winter, the daily sitting-room for the leisure hours of a
husband and wife, and family of children, where a plain straw matting
has done service for seven years. That parlor is in a city, and these
friends are in the habit of receiving visits from people who live upon
velvet and Brussels; but they prefer to spend the money which such
carpets would cost on other modes of embellishment; and this parlor
has often been cited to us as a very attractive room.

And now our friends, having got thus far, are requested to select some
one tint or color which shall be the prevailing one in the furniture
of the room. Shall it be green? Shall it be blue? Shall it be crimson?
To carry on our illustration, we will choose green, and we proceed
with it to create furniture for our room. Let us imagine that on one
side of the fireplace there be, as there is often, a recess about six
feet long and three feet deep. Fill this recess with a rough frame
with four stout legs, one foot high, and upon the top of the frame
have an elastic rack of slats. Make a mattress for this, or, if you
wish to avoid that trouble, you can get a nice mattress for the sum
of two dollars, made of cane-shavings or husks. Cover this with a
green English furniture print. The glazed English comes at about
twenty-five cents a yard, the glazed French at seventy-five cents a
yard, and a nice article of yard-wide French twill (very strong) is
from seventy-five to eighty cents a yard.

With any of these cover your lounge. Make two large, square pillows
of the same substance as the mattress, and set up at the back. If you
happen to have one or two feather pillows that you can spare for the
purpose, shake them down into a square shape and cover them with the
same print, and you will then have for pillows for your lounge--one
at each end, and two at the back, and you will find it answers for all
the purposes of a sofa.

[Illustration: Fig. 38.]

It will be a very pretty thing, now, to cut out of the same material
as your lounge, sets of lambrequins (or, as they are called,
_lamberkins_,) a land of pendent curtain-top, as shown in the
illustration, to put over the windows, which are to be embellished
with white muslin curtains. The cornices to your windows can be simply
strips of wood covered with paper to match the bordering of your room,
and the lambrequins, made of chintz like the lounge, can be trimmed
with fringe or gimp of the same color. The patterns of these can be
varied according to fancy, but simple designs are usually the prettiest.
A tassel at the lowest point improves the appearance.

The curtains can be made of plain white muslin, or some of the many
styles that come for this purpose. If plain muslin is used, you can
ornament them with hems an inch in width, in which insert a strip of
gingham or chambray of the same color as your chintz. This will wash
with the curtains without losing its color, or should it fade, it can
easily be drawn out and replaced.

The influence of white-muslin curtains in giving an air of grace and
elegance to a room is astonishing. White curtains really create a room
out of nothing. No matter how coarse the muslin, so it be white and
hang in graceful folds, there is a charm in it that supplies the want
of multitudes of other things.

Very pretty curtain-muslin can be bought at thirty-seven cents a yard.
It requires six yards for a window.

Let your men-folk knock up for you, out of rough, unplaned boards,
some ottoman frames, as described in Chapter II; stuff the tops with
just the same material as the lounge, and cover them with the self-same
chintz.

[Illustration: Fig. 39.]

Now you have, suppose your selected color to be green, a green lounge
in the corner and two green ottomans; you have white muslin curtains,
with green lambrequins and borders, and your room already looks
furnished. If you have in the house any broken-down arm-chair, reposing
in the oblivion of the garret, draw it out--drive a nail here and
there to hold it firm--stuff and pad, and stitch the padding through
with a long upholsterer's needle, and cover it with the chintz like
your other furniture. Presto--you create an easy-chair.

Thus can broken and disgraced furniture reappear, and, being put into
uniform with the general suit of your room, take a new lease of life.

If you want a centre-table, consider this--that any kind of table,
well concealed beneath the folds of _handsome drapery of a color
corresponding to the general hue of the room,_ will look well.
Instead of going to the cabinet-maker and paying from thirty to forty
dollars upon a little, narrow, cold, marble-topped stand, that gives
just room enough to hold a lamp and a book or two, reflect within
yourself what a centre-table is made for. If you have in your house
a good, broad, generous-topped table, take it, cover it with an ample
cloth of green broadcloth. Such a cover, two and a half yards square,
of fine green broadcloth, figured with black and with a pattern-border
of grape-leaves, has been bought for ten dollars. In a room we wot of,
it covers a cheap pine table, such as you may buy for four or five
dollars any day; but you will be astonished to see how handsome an
object this table makes under its green drapery. Probably you could
make the cover more cheaply by getting the cloth and trimming its edge
with a handsome border, selected for the purpose; but either way, it
will be an economical and useful ornament. We set down our centre-table,
therefore, as consisting mainly of a nice broadcloth cover, matching
our curtains and lounge.

We are sure that any one with "a heart that is humble" may command
such a centre-table and cloth for fifteen dollars or less, and a family
of five or six may all sit and work, or read, or write around it, and
it is capable of entertaining a generous allowance of books and
knick-knacks.

You have now for your parlor the following figures:

  Wall-paper and border,.................................... $5.50
  Thirty yards matting,..................................... 15.00
  Centre-table and cloth,................................... 15.00
  Muslin for three windows,.................................. 6.75
  Thirty yards green English chintz, at 25 cents,............ 7.50
  Six chairs, at $2 each,................................... 12.00

  Total,....................................................$61.75
Subtracted from eighty dollars, which we set down as the price of the
cheap, ugly Brussels carpet, we have our whole room papered, carpeted,
curtained, and furnished, and we have nearly twenty dollars remaining
for pictures.

As a little suggestion in regard to the selection, you can got Miss
Oakley's charming little cabinet picture of

  "The Little Scrap-Book Maker" for........................ $7 50
  Eastman Johnson's "Barefoot Boy,"................. (Prang) 5 00
  Newman's "Blue-fringed Gentians,"..................(Prang) 6 00
  Bierstadt's "Sunset in the Yo Semite Valley,"......(Prang)12 00

Here are thirty dollars' worth of really admirable pictures of some
of our best American artists, from which you can choose at your leisure.
By sending to any leading picture-dealer, lists of pictures and prices
will be forwarded to you. These chromos, being all varnished, can wait
for frames until you can afford them. Or, what is better, because it
is at once cheaper and a means of educating the ingenuity and the
taste, you can make for yourselves pretty rustic frames in various
modes. Take a very thin board, of the right size and shape, for the
foundation or "mat;" saw out the inner oval or rectangular form to
suit the picture. Nail on the edge a rustic frame made of branches of
hard, seasoned wood, and garnish the corners with some pretty device;
such, for instance, as a cluster of acorns; or, in place of the branches
of trees, fasten on with glue small pine cones, with larger ones for
corner ornaments. Or use the mosses of the wood or ocean shells for
this purpose. It may be more convenient to get the mat or inner moulding
from a framer, or have it made by your carpenter, with a groove behind
to hold a glass. Here are also picture-frames of pretty effect, and
very simply made. The one in Fig. 42 is made of either light or dark
wood, neat, thin, and not very wide, with the ends simply broken, off,
or cut so as to resoluble a rough break. The other is white pine, sawn
into simple form, well smoothed, and marked with a delicate black
tracery, as suggested in Fig. 43. This should also be varnished, then
it will take a rich, yellow tinge, which harmonizes admirably with
chromos, and lightens up engravings to singular advantage. Besides the
American and the higher range of German and English chromos, there are
very many pretty little French chromos, which can be had at prices
from $1 to $5, including black walnut frames.

[Illustration: Fig. 40]
[Illustration: Fig. 41]
[Illustration: Fig. 42]
[Illustration: Fig. 43]

We have been through this calculation merely to show our readers how
much beautiful effect may be produced by a wise disposition of color
and skill in arrangement. If any of our friends should ever carry it
out, they will find that the buff paper, with its dark, narrow border;
the green chintz repeated in the lounge, the ottomans, and lambrequins;
the flowing, white curtains; the broad, generous centre-table, draped
with its ample green cloth, will, when arranged together, produce an
effect of grace and beauty far beyond what any one piece or even half
a dozen pieces of expensive cabinet furniture could. The great, simple
principle of beauty illustrated in this room is _harmony of color_.

You can, in the same way, make a red room by using Turkey red for your
draperies; or a blue room by using blue chintz. Let your chintz be of
a small pattern, and one that is decided in color.

We have given the plan of a room with matting on the floor because
that is absolutely the cheapest cover. The price of thirty yards plain,
good ingrain carpet, at $1.50 per yard, would be forty-five dollars;
the difference between forty-five and fifteen dollars would _furnish_ a
room with pictures such as we have instanced. However, the same
programme can be even better carried out with a green ingrain carpet as
the foundation of the color of the room.

Our friends, who lived seven years upon matting, contrived to give
their parlor in winter an effect of warmth and color by laying down,
in front of the fire, a large square of carpeting, say three breadths,
four yards long. This covered the gathering-place around the fire where
the winter circle generally sits, and gave an appearance of warmth to
the room.

If we add this piece of carpeting to the estimates for our room, we
still leave a margin for a picture, and make the programme equally
adapted to summer and winter.

Besides the chromos, which, when well selected and of the best class,
give the charm of color which belongs to expensive paintings, there
are engravings which finely reproduce much of the real spirit and
beauty of the celebrated pictures of the world. And even this does not
exhaust the resources of economical art; for there are few of the
renowned statues, whether of antiquity or of modern times, that have
not been accurately copied in plaster casts; and a few statuettes,
costing perhaps five or six dollars each, will give a really elegant
finish to your rooms-providing always that they are selected with
discrimination and taste.

The educating influence of these works of art can hardly be over-
estimated. Surrounded by such suggestions of the beautiful, and such
reminders of history and art, children are constantly trained to
correctness of tote and refinement of thought, and stimulated--sometimes
to efforts at artistic imitation, always to the eager and intelligent
inquiry about the scenes, the places, the incidents represented. Just
here, perhaps, we are met by some who grant all that we say on the
subject of decoration by works of art, and who yet impatiently exclaim,
"But I have _no_ money to spare for any thing of this sort. I am
condemned to an absolute bareness, and beauty in my case is not to be
thought of."

Are you sure, my friend? If you live in the country, or can get into
the country, and have your eyes opened and your wits about you, your
house need not be condemned to an absolute bareness. Not so long as
the woods are full of beautiful ferns and mosses, while every swamp
shakes and nods with tremulous grasses, need you feel yourself an
utterly disinherited child of nature, and deprived of its artistic use.

For example: Take an old tin pan condemned to the retired list by
reason of holes in the bottom, get twenty-five cents' worth of green
paint for this and other purposes, and paint it. The holes in the
bottom are a recommendation for its new service. If there are no holes,
you must drill two or three, as drainage is essential. Now put a layer
one inch deep of broken charcoal and potsherds over the bottom, and
then soil, in the following proportions:

Two fourths wood-soil, such as you find in forests, under trees.

One fourth clean sand.

One fourth meadow-soil, taken from under fresh turf. Mix with this
some charcoal dust.

In this soil plant all sorts of ferns, together with some few
swamp-grasses; and around the edge put a border of money-plant or
periwinkle to hang over. This will need to be watered once or twice
a week, and it will grow and thrive all summer long in a corner of
your room. Should you prefer, you can suspend it by wires and make a
hanging-basket.--Ferns and wood-grasses need not have sunshine--they
grow well in shadowy places.

On this same principle you can convert a salt-box or an old drum of
figs into a hanging-basket. Tack bark and pine-cones and moss upon the
outside of it, drill holes and pass wires through it, and you have a
woodland hanging-basket, which will hang and grow in any corner of
your house.

We have been into rooms which, by the simple disposition of articles
of this kind, have been made to have an air so poetical and attractive
that they seemed more like a nymph's cave than any thing in the real
world.

[Illustration: Fig. 44.]

Another mode of disposing of ferns is this: Take a flat piece of board
sawed out something like a shield, with a hole at the top for hanging
it up. Upon the board nail a wire pocket made of an ox-muzzle flattened
on one side; or make something of the kind with stiff wire. Line this
with a sheet of close moss, which appears green behind the wire
net-work. Then you fill it with loose, spongy moss, such as you find
in swamps, and plant therein great plumes of fern and various
swamp-grasses; they will continue to grow there, and hang gracefully
over. When watering, set a pail under for it to drip into. It needs
only to keep this moss always damp, and to sprinkle these ferns
occasionally with a whisk-broom, to have a most lovely ornament for
your room or hall.

The use of ivy in decorating a room is beginning to be generally
acknowledged. It needs to be planted in the kind of soil we have
described, in a well-drained pot or box, and to have its leaves
thoroughly washed once or twice a year in strong suds made with
soft-soap, to free it from dust and scale-bug; and an ivy will live
and thrive and wind about in a room, year in and year out, will grow
around pictures, and do almost any thing to oblige you that you can
suggest to it. For instance, in a March number of _Hearth and Home_,
[Footnote: A beautifully illustrated agricultural and family weekly
paper, edited by Donald G. Mitchell(Ik Marvel) and Mrs. H. B. Stowe,]
there is a picture of the most delightful library-window imaginable,
whose chief charm consists in the running vines that start from a
longitudinal box at the bottom of the window, and thence clamber
up and about the casing and across the rustic frame-work erected for
its convenience. On the opposite page we present another plain kind
of window, ornamented with a variety of these rural economical
adornings.

[Illustration: Fig. 45.]
In the centre is a Ward's case. On one side is a pot of _Fuchsia_.
On the other side is a Calla Lily. In the hanging-baskets and on the
brackets are the ferns and flowers that flourish in the deep woods,
and around the window is the ivy, running from two boxes; and, in case
the window has some sun, a _Nasturtium_ may spread its bright blossoms
among the leaves. Then, in the winter, when there is less sun, the
_Striped Spider-wort_, the _Smilax_ and the _Saxifraga_. _Samantosa_ (or
_Wandering Jew_) may be substituted. Pretty brackets can be made of
common pine, ornamented with odd-growing twigs or mosses or roots,
scraped and varnished, or in their native state.

A beautiful ornament for a room with pictures is German ivy. Slips of
this will start without roots in bottles of water. Slide the bottle
behind the picture, and the ivy will seem to come from fairyland, and
hang its verdure in all manner of pretty curves around the picture.
It may then be trained to travel toward other ivy, and thus aid in
forming green cornice along the ceiling. We have seen some rooms that
had an ivy cornice around the whole, giving the air of a leafy bower.

There are some other odd devices to ornament a room. For example, a
sponge, kept wet by daily immersion, can be filled with flax-seed and
suspended by a cord, when it will ere long be covered with verdure and
afterward with flowers.

A sweet potato, laid in a bowl of water on a bracket, or still better,
suspended by a knitting-needle, run through or laid across the bowl
half in the water, will, in due time, make a beautiful verdant ornament.
A large carrot, with the smallest half cut off, scooped out to hold
water and then suspended with cords, will send out graceful shoots in
rich profusion.

Half a cocoa-nut shell, suspended, will hold earth or water for plants
and make a pretty hanging-garden.

It may be a very proper thing to direct the ingenuity and activity of
children into the making of hanging-baskets and vases of rustic work.
The best foundations are the cheap wooden bowls, which are quite easy
to get, and the walks of children in the woods can be made interesting
by their bringing home material for this rustic work. Different colored
twigs and sprays of trees, such as the bright scarlet of the dog-wood,
the yellow of the willow, the black of the birch, and the silvery gray
of the poplar, may be combined in fanciful net-work. For this sort of
work, no other investment is needed than a hammer and an assortment
of different-sized tacks, and beautiful results will be produced.
Fig. 46 is a stand for flowers, made of roots, scraped and varnished.
But the greatest and cheapest and most delightful fountain of beauty
is a "Ward case."

[Illustration: Fig 46.]

Now, immediately all our economical friends give up in despair. Ward's
cases sell all the way along from eighteen to fifty dollars, and are,
like every thing else in this lower world, regarded as the sole
perquisites of the rich.

Let us not be too sure. Plate-glass, and hot-house plants, and rare
patterns, _are_ the especial inheritance of the rich; but any family may
command all the requisites of a Ward case for a very small sum. Such a
case is a small glass closet over a well-drained box of soil. You make a
Ward case on a small scale when you turn a tumbler over a plant. The
glass keeps the temperature moist and equable, and preserves the plants
from dust, and the soil being well drained, they live and thrive
accordingly. The requisites of these are the glass top and the bed of
well-drained soil.

Suppose you have a common cheap table, four feet long and two wide.
Take off the top boards of your table, and with them board the bottom
across tight and firm; then line it with zinc, and you will have a
sort of box or sink on legs. Now make a top of common window-glass
such as you would get for a cucumber-frame; let it be two and a half
feet high, with a ridge-pole like a house, and a slanting roof of glass
resting on this ridge-pole; on one end let there be a door two feet
square.

[Illustration: Fig. 47.]

We have seen a Ward case made in this way, in which the capabilities
for producing ornamental effect were greatly beyond many of the most
elaborate ones of the shops. It was large, and roomy, and cheap. Common
window-sash and glass are not dear, and any man with moderate ingenuity
could fashion such a glass closet for his wife; or a woman, not having
such a husband, can do it herself.

The sink or box part must have in the middle of it a hole of good size
for drainage. In preparing for the reception of plants, first turn a
plant-saucer over this hole, which may otherwise become stopped. Then,
as directed for the other basket, proceed with a layer of broken
charcoal and pot-sherds for drainage, two inches deep, and prepare the
soil as directed above, and add to it some pounded charcoal, or the
scrapings of the charcoal-bin. In short, more or less charcoal and
charcoal-dust is always in order in the treatment of these moist
subjects, as it keeps them from fermenting and growing sour.

Now for filling the case.

Our own native forest-ferns have a period in the winter months when
they cease to grow. They are very particular in asserting their right
to this yearly nap, and will not, on any consideration, grow for you
out of their appointed season.

Nevertheless, we shall tell you what we have tried ourselves, because
greenhouse ferns are expensive, and often great cheats when you have
bought them, and die on your hands in the most reckless and shameless
manner. If you make a Ward case in the spring, your ferns will grow
beautifully in it all summer; and in the autumn, though they stop
growing, and cease to throw out leaves, yet the old leaves will remain
fresh and green till the time for starting the new ones in the spring.

But, supposing you wish to start your case in the fall, out of such
things as you can find in the forest; by searching carefully the rocks
and clefts and recesses of the forest, you can find a quantity of
beautiful ferns whose leaves the frost has not yet assailed. Gather
them carefully, remembering that the time of the plant's sleep has
come, and that you must make the most of the leaves it now has, as you
will not have a leaf more from it till its waking-up time in February
or March. But we have succeeded, and you will succeed, in making a
very charming and picturesque collection. You can make in your Ward
case lovely little grottoes with any bits of shells, and minerals, and
rocks you may have; you can lay down, here and there, fragments of
broken looking-glass for the floor of your grottoes, and the effect
of them will be magical. A square of looking-glass introduced into the
back side of your case will produce charming effects.

The trailing arbutus or May-flower, if cut up carefully in sods, and
put into this Ward case, will come into bloom there a month sooner
than it otherwise would, and gladden your eyes and heart.

In the fall, if you can find the tufts of eye-bright or houstonia
cerulia, and mingle them in with your mosses, you will find them
blooming before winter is well over.

But among the most beautiful things for such a case is the
partridge-berry, with its red plums. The berries swell and increase
in the moist atmosphere, and become intense in color, forming an
admirable ornament.

Then the ground pine, the princess pine, and various nameless pretty
things of the woods, all flourish in these little conservatories. In
getting your sod of trailing arbutus, remember that this plant forms
its buds in the fall. You must, therefore, examine your sod carefully,
and see if the buds are there; otherwise you will find no blossoms in
the spring.

There are one or two species of violets, also, that form their buds
in the fall, and these too, will blossom early for you.

We have never tried the wild anemones, the crowfoot, etc.; but as they
all do well in moist, shady places, we recommend hopefully the
experiment of putting some of them in.

A Ward case has this recommendation over common house-plants, that it
takes so little time and care. If well made in the outset, and
thoroughly drenched with water when the plants are first put in, it
will after that need only to be watered about once a month, and to be
ventilated by occasionally leaving open the door for a half-hour or
hour when the moisture obscures the glass and seems in excess.

To women embarrassed with the care of little children, yet longing for
the refreshment of something growing and beautiful, this indoor garden
will be an untold treasure. The glass defends the plant from the
inexpedient intermeddling of little fingers; while the little eyes,
just on a level with the panes of glass, can look through and learn
to enjoy the beautiful, silent miracles of nature.

For an invalid's chamber, such a case would be an indescribable comfort.
It is, in fact, a fragment of the green woods brought in and silently
growing; it will refresh many a weary hour to watch it.



VII.

THE CARE OF HEALTH.

There is no point where a woman is more liable to suffer from a want
of knowledge and experience than in reference to the health of a family
committed to her care. Many a young lady who never had any charge of
the sick; who never took any care of an infant; who never obtained
information on these subjects from books, or from the experience of
others; in short, with little or no preparation, has found herself the
principal attendant in dangerous sickness, the chief nurse of a feeble
infant, and the responsible guardian of the health of a whole family.

The care, the fear, the perplexity of a woman suddenly called to these
unwonted duties, none can realize till they themselves feel it, or
till they see some young and anxious novice first attempting to meet
such responsibilities. To a woman of age and experience these duties
often involve a measure of trial and difficulty at times deemed almost
insupportable; how hard, then, must they press on the heart of the
young and inexperienced!

There is no really efficacious mode of preparing a woman to take a
rational care of the health of a family, except by communicating that
knowledge in regard to the construction of the body and the laws of
health which is the basis of the medical profession. Not that a woman
should undertake the minute and extensive investigation requisite for
a physician; but she should gain a general knowledge of first
principles, as a guide to her judgment in emergencies when she can
rely on no other aid.

With this end in view, in the preceding chapters some portions of the
organs and functions of the human body have been presented, and others
will now follow in connection with the practical duties which result
from them.

On the general subject of health, one recent discovery of science may
here be introduced as having an important relation to every organ and
function of the body, and as being one to which frequent reference
will be made; and that is, the nature and operation of _cell-life_.

By the aid of the microscope, we can examine the minute construction
of plants and animals, in which we discover contrivances and operations,
if not so sublime, yet more wonderful and interesting, than the vast
systems of worlds revealed by the telescope.

By this instrument it is now seen that the first formation, as well
as future changes and actions, of all plants and animals are
accomplished by means of small cells or bags containing various kinds
of liquids. These cells are so minute that, of the smallest, some
hundreds would not cover the dot of a printed _i_ on this page.
They are of diverse shapes and contents, and perform various different
operations.

[Illustration: Fig 48.]

The first formation of every animal is accomplished by the agency of
cells, and may be illustrated by the egg of any bird or fowl. The
exterior consists of a hard shell for protection, and this is lined
with a tough skin, to which is fastened the yelk, (which means the
_yellow_,) by fibrous strings, as seen at _a_, _a_, in the diagram. In
the yelk floats the germ-cell, _b_, which is the point where the
formation of the future animal commences. The yelk, being lighter than
the white, rises upward, and the germ being still lighter, rises in the
yelk. This is to bring both nearer to the vitalizing warmth of the
brooding mother.

New cells are gradually formed from the nourishing yelk around the
germ, each being at first roundish in shape, and having a spot near
the centre, called the nucleus. The reason why cells increase must
remain a mystery, until we can penetrate the secrets of vital
force--probably forever. But the mode in which they multiply is as
follows: The first change noticed in a cell, when warmed into vital
activity, is the appearance of a second nucleus within it, while the
cell gradually becomes oval in form, and then is drawn inward at the
middle, like an hour-glass, till the two sides meet. The two portions
then divide, and two cells appear, each containing its own germinal
nucleus. These both divide again in the same manner, proceeding in the
ratio of 2, 4, 8, 16, and so on, until most of the yelk becomes a mass
of cells.

The central point of this mass, where the animal itself commences to
appear, shows, first, a round-shaped figure, which soon assumes form
like a pear, and then like a violin. Gradually the busy little cells
arrange themselves to build up heart, lungs, brain, stomach, and limbs,
for which the yelk and white furnish nutriment. There is a small bag
of air fastened to one end inside of the shell; and when the animal
is complete, this air is taken into its lungs, life begins, and out
walks little chick, all its powers prepared, and ready to run, eat,
and enjoy existence. Then, as soon as the animal uses its brain to
think and feel, and its muscles to move, the cells which have been
made up into these parts begin to decay, while new cells are formed
from the blood to take their place. Time with life commences the
constant process of decay and renewal all over the body.

[Illustration: Fig. 49.]

The liquid portion of the blood consists of material formed from food,
air, and water. From this material the cells of the blood are formed:
first, the white cells, which are incomplete in formation; and then
the red cells, which are completed by the addition of the oxygen
received from air in the lungs. Fig. 49 represents part of a magnified
blood-vessel, _a_, _a_, in which the round cells are the white, and the
oblong the red cells, floating in the blood. Surrounding the blood-
vessels are the cells forming the adjacent membrane, _bb_, each having a
nucleus in its centre.

Cells have different powers of selecting and secreting diverse materials
from the blood. Thus, some secrete bile to carry to the liver, others
secrete saliva for the mouth, others take up the tears, and still
others take material for the brain, muscles, and all other organs.
Cells also have a converting power, of taking one kind of matter from
the blood, and changing it to another kind. They are minute chemical
laboratories all over the body, changing materials of one kind to
another form in which they can be made useful.

Both animal and vegetable substances are formed of cells. But the
vegetable cells take up and use unorganized or simple, natural matter;
whereas the animal cell only takes substances already organized into
vegetable or animal life, and then changes one compound into another
of different proportions and nature.

These curious facts in regard to cell-life have important relations
to the general subject of the care of health, and also to the cure of
disease, as will be noticed in following chapters.


THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.

There is another portion of the body, which is so intimately connected
with every other that it is placed in this chapter as also having
reference to every department in the general subject of the care of
health.

The body has no power to move itself, but is a collection of instruments
to be used by the mind in securing various kinds of knowledge and
enjoyment. The organs through which the mind thus operates are the
_brain_ and _nerves_. The drawing (Fig. 50) represents them.

[Illustration: Fig. 50.]

The brain lies in the skull, and is divided into the large or upper
brain, marked 1, and the small or lower brain, marked 2. From the brain
runs the spinal marrow through the spine or backbone. From each side
of the spine the large nerves run out into innumerable smaller branches
to every portion of the body. The drawing shows only some of the larger
branches. Those marked 3 run to the neck and organs of the chest; those
marked 4 go to the arms; those below the arms, marked 3, go to the
trunk; and those marked 5 go to the legs.

The brain and nerves consist of two kinds of nervous matter--the _gray_,
which is supposed to be the portion that originates and controls a
nervous fluid which imparts power of action; and the _white_, which
seems to conduct this fluid to every part of the body.

The brain and nervous system are divided into distinct portions, each
having different offices to perform, and each acting independently of
the others; as, for example, one portion is employed by the mind in
thinking, and in feeling pleasurable or painful mental emotions; another
in moving the muscles; while the nerves that run to the nose, ears,
eyes, tongue, hands, and surface generally, are employed in seeing,
hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling all physical sensations.

The _back_ portion of the spinal marrow and the nerves that run from it
are employed in _sensation_, or the _sense of feeling_. These nerves
extend over the whole body, but are largely developed in the network of
nerves in the skin. The _front_ portion of the spinal marrow and its
branches are employed in moving those muscles in all parts of the body
which are controlled by the _will_ or _choice_ of the mind. These are
called the _nerves of motion_.

The nerves of sensation and nerves of motion, although they start from
different portions of the spine, are united in the same _sheath_ or
_cover_, till they terminate in the muscles. Thus, every muscle is moved
by nerves of motion; while alongside of this nerve, in the same sheath,
is a nerve of sensation. All the nerves of motion and sensation are
connected with those portions of the brain used when we think, feel, and
choose. By this arrangement the mind _knows_ what is wanted in all parts
of the body by means of the nerves of sensation, and then it _acts_ by
means of the nerves of motion.

For example, when we feel the cold air on the skin, the nerves of
sensation report to the brain, and thus to the mind, that the body is
growing cold. The mind thus knows that more clothing is needed, and
_wills_ to have the eyes look for it, and the hands and feet move
to get it. This is done by the nerves of sight and of motion.

Next are the nerves of _involuntary motion_, which move all those
parts of the head, face, and body that are used in breathing, and in
other operations connected with it. By these we continue to breathe
when asleep, and whether we will to do so or not. There are also some
of the nerves of voluntary motion that are mixed with these, which
enable the mind to stop respiration, or to regulate it to a certain
extent. But the mind has no power to stop it for any great length of
time.

There is another large and important system of nerves called the
_sympathetic_ or _ganglionic_ system. It consists of small masses of
gray and white nervous matter, that seem to be small brains with nerves
running from them. These are called _ganglia_, and are arranged on each
side of the spine, while small nerves from the spinal marrow run into
them, thus uniting the sympathetic system with the nerves of the spine.
These ganglia are also distributed around in various parts of the
interior of the body, especially in the intestines, and all the
different ganglia are connected with each other by nerves, thus making
one system. It is the ganglionic system that carries on the circulation
of the blood, the action of the capillaries, lymphatics, arteries, and
veins, together with the work of secretion, absorption, and most of the
internal working of the body, which goes forward without any knowledge
or control of the mind.

Every portion of the body has nerves of sensation coming from the
spine, and also branches of the sympathetic or ganglionic system. The
object of this is to form a sympathetic communication between the
several parts of the body, and also to enable the mind to receive,
through the brain, some general knowledge of the state of the whole
system. It is owing to this that, when one portion of the body is
affected, other portions sympathize. For example, if one part of the
body is diseased, the stomach may so sympathize as to lose all appetite
until the disease is removed.

All the operations of the nervous system are performed by the influence
of the nervous fluid, which is generated in the gray portions of the
brain and ganglia. Whenever a nerve is cut off from its connection
with these nervous centres, its power is gone, and the part to which
it ministered becomes lifeless and incapable of motion.

The brain and nerves can be overworked, and can also suffer for want
of exercise, just as the muscles do. It is necessary for the perfect
health of the brain and nerves that the several portions he exercised
sufficiently, and that no part be exhausted by over-action. For
example, the nerves of sensation may be very much exercised, and the
nerves of motion have but little exercise. In this ease, one will be
weakened by excess of work, and the other by the want of it.

It is found by experience that the proper exercise of the nerves of
motion tends to reduce any extreme susceptibility of the nerves of
sensation. On the contrary, the neglect of such exercise tends to
produce an excessive sensibility in the nerves of sensation.

Whenever that part of the brain which is employed in thinking, feeling,
and willing, is greatly exercised by hard study, or by excessive care
or emotion, the blood tends to the brain to supply it with increased
nourishment, just as it flows to the muscles when they are exercised.
Over-exercise of this portion of the brain causes engorgement of the
blood-vessels. This is sometimes indicated by pain, or by a sense of
fullness in the head; but oftener the result is a debilitating drain
on the nervous system, which depends for its supply on the healthful
state of the brain.

The brain has, as it were, a fountain of supply for the nervous fluid,
which flows to all the nerves, and stimulates them to action. Some
brains have a larger, and some a smaller fountain; so that a degree
of mental activity that would entirely exhaust one, would make only
a small and healthful drain upon another.

The excessive use of certain portions of the brain tends to withdraw
the nervous energy from other portions; so that when one part is
debilitated by excess, another fails by neglect. For example, a person
may so exhaust the brain power in the excessive use of the nerves of
motion by hard work, as to leave little for any other faculty. On the
other hand, the nerves of feeling and thinking may be so used as to
withdraw the nervous fluid from the nerves of motion, and thus
debilitate the muscles.

Some animal propensities may be indulged to such excess as to produce
a constant tendency of the blood to a certain portion of the brain,
and to the organs connected with it, and thus cause a constant and
excessive excitement, which finally becomes a disease. Sometimes a
paralysis of this portion of the brain results from such an entire
exhaustion of the nervous fountain and of the overworked nerves.

Thus, also, the thinking portion of the brain may be so overworked as
to drain the nervous fluid from other portions, which become debilitated
by the loss. And in this way, also, the overworked portion may be
diseased or paralyzed by the excess.

The necessity for the _equal development_ of all portions of the brain
by an appropriate exercise of _all_ the faculties of mind and body, and
the influence of this upon happiness, is the most important portion of
this subject, and will be more directly exhibited in another chapter.




VIII.

DOMESTIC EXERCISE.


In a work which aims to influence women to train the young to honor
domestic labor and to seek healthful exercise in home pursuits, there
is special reason for explaining the construction of the muscles and
their connection with the nerves, these being the chief organs of
motion.

The muscles, as seen by the naked eye, consist of very fine fibres or
strings, bound up in smooth, silky casings of thin membrane. But each
of these visible fibres or strings the microscope shows to be made up
of still finer strings, numbering from five to eight hundred in each
fibre. And each of these microscopic fibres is a series or chain of
elastic cells, which are so minute that one hundred thousand would
scarcely cover a capital O on this page.

[Illustration: Fig. 51.]
[Illustration: Fig. 52.]

The peculiar property of the cells which compose the muscles is their
elasticity, no other cells of the body having this property. At Fig.
51 is a diagram representing a microscopic muscular fibre, in which
the cells are relaxed, as in the natural state of rest. But when the
muscle contracts, each of its numberless cells in all its small fibres
becomes widened, making each fibre of the muscle shorter and thicker,
as at Fig. 52. This explains the cause of the swelling out of muscles
when they act.

Every motion in every part of the body has a special muscle to produce
it, and many have other muscles to restore the part moved to its natural
state. The muscles that move or bend any part are called _flexors_,
and those that restore the natural position are called _extensors_.

[Illustration: Fig. 53]

Fig. 53 represents the muscles of the arm after the skin and flesh are
removed. They are all in smooth silky cases, laid over each other, and
separated both by the smooth membranes that encase them and by layers
of fat, so as to move easily without interfering with each other. They
are fastened to the bones by strong tendons and cartilages; and around
the wrist, in the drawing, is shown a band of cartilage to confine
them in place. The muscle marked 8 is the extensor that straightens
the fingers after they have been closed by a flexor the other side of
the arm. In like manner, each motion of the arm and fingers has one
muscle to produce it and another to restore to the natural position.

The muscles are dependent on the brain and nerves for power to move.
It has been shown that the gray matter of the brain and spinal marrow
furnishes the stimulating power that moves the muscles, and causes
sensations of touch on the skin, and the other sensations of the several
senses. The white part of the brain and spinal marrow consists solely
of conducting tubes to transmit this influence. Each of the minute
fibrils of the muscles has a small conducting nerve connecting it with
the brain or spinal marrow, and in this respect each muscular fibril
is separate from every other.

When, therefore, the mind wills to move a flexor muscle of the arm,
the gray matter sends out the stimulus through the nerves to the cells
of each individual fibre of that muscle, and they contract. When this
is done, the nerve of sensation reports it to the brain and mind. If
the mind desires to return the arm to its former position, then follows
the willing, and consequent stimulus sent through the nerves to the
corresponding muscle; its cells contract, and the limb is restored.

When the motion is a compound one, involving the action of several
muscles at the same time, a multitude of impressions are sent back and
forth to and from the brain through the nerves. But the person acting
thus is unconscious of all this delicate and wonderful mechanism. He
wills the movement, and instantly the requisite nervous power is sent
to the required cells and fibres, and they perform the motions required.
Many of the muscles are moved by the sympathetic system, over which
the mind has but little control.

Among the muscles and nerves so intimately connected, run the minute
capillaries of the blood, which furnish nourishment to all.

[Illustration: Fig. 54]

Fig. 54 represents an artery a _a_, which brings pure blood to a muscle
from the heart. After meandering through the capillaries at _c_, to
distribute oxygen and food from the stomach, the blood enters the vein,
_b_, loaded with carbonic acid and water taken up in the capillaries, to
be carried to the lungs or skin, and thrown out into the air.

The manner in which the exercise of the muscles quickens the circulation
of the blood will now be explained. The veins abound in every part of
every muscle, and the large veins have _valves_ which prevent the
blood from flowing backward. If the wrist is grasped tightly, the veins
of the hand are immediately swollen. This is owing to the fact that
the blood is prevented from flowing toward the heart by this pressure,
and by the vein-valves from returning into the arteries; while the
arteries themselves, being placed deeper down, are not so compressed,
and continue to send the blood into the hand, and thus it accumulates.
As soon as this pressure is removed, the blood springs onward from the
restraint with accelerated motion. This same process takes place when
any of the muscles are exercised. The contraction of any muscle presses
some of the veins, so that the blood can not flow the natural way,
while the valves in the veins prevent its flowing backward. Meantime
the arteries continue to press the blood along until the veins become
swollen. Then, as soon as the muscle ceases its contraction, the blood
flows faster from the previous accumulation.

If, then, we use a number of muscles, and use them strongly and quickly,
there are so many veins affected in this way as to quicken the whole
circulation. The heart receives blood faster, and sends it to the lungs
faster. Then the lungs work quicker, to furnish the oxygen required
by the greater amount of blood. The blood returns with greater speed
to the heart, and the heart sends it out with quicker action through
the arteries to the capillaries. In the capillaries, too, the decayed
matter is carried off faster, and then the stomach calls for more food
to furnish new and pure blood. Thus it is that exercise gives new life
and nourishment to every part of the body.

It is the universal law of the human frame that _exercise_ is
indispensable to the health of the several parts. Thus, if a
blood-vessel be tied up, so as not to be used, it shrinks, and becomes
a useless string; if a muscle be condemned to inaction, it shrinks in
size and diminishes in power; and thus it is also with the bones.
Inactivity produces softness, debility, and unfitness for the functions
they are designed to perform.

Now, the nerves, like all other parts of the body, gain and lose
strength according as they are exercised. If they have too much or too
little exercise, they lose strength; if they are exercised to a proper
degree, they gain strength. When the mind is continuously excited, by
business, study, or the imagination, the nerves of emotion and sensation
are kept in constant action, while the nerves of motion are unemployed.
If this is continued for a long time, the nerves of sensation lose
their strength from over-action, and the nerves of motion lose their
power from inactivity. In consequence, there is a morbid excitability
of the nervous, and a debility of the muscular system, which make all
exertion irksome and wearisome.

The only mode of preserving the health of these systems is to keep up
in them an equilibrium of action. For this purpose, occupations must
be sought which exercise the muscles and interest the mind; and thus
the equal action of both kinds of nerves is secured. This shows why
exercise is so much more healthful and invigorating when the mind is
interested, than when it is not. As an illustration, let a person go
shopping with a friend, and have nothing to do but look on. How soon
do the continuous walking and standing weary! But, suppose one, thus
wearied, hears of the arrival of a very dear friend: she can instantly
walk off a mile or two to meet her, without the least feeling of
fatigue. By this is shown the importance of furnishing, for young
persons, exercise in which they will take an interest. Long and formal
walks, merely for exercise, though they do some good, in securing fresh
air, and some exercise of the muscles, would be of triple benefit if
changed to amusing sports, or to the cultivation of fruits and flowers,
in which it is impossible to engage without acquiring a great interest.

It shows, also, why it is far better to trust to useful domestic
exercise at home than to send a young person out to walk for the mere
purpose of exercise. Young girls can seldom be made to realize the
value of health, and the need of exercise to secure it, so as to feel
much interest in walking abroad, when they have no other object. But,
if they are brought up to minister to the comfort and enjoyment of
themselves and others, by performing domestic duties, they will
constantly be interested and cheered in their exercise by the feeling
of usefulness and the consciousness of having performed their duty.

There are few young persons, it is hoped, who are brought up with such
miserable habits of selfishness and indolence that they can not be
made to feel happier by the consciousness of being usefully employed.
And those who have never been accustomed to think or care for any one
but themselves, and who seem to feel little pleasure in making
themselves useful, by wise and proper influences can often be gradually
awakened to the new pleasure of benevolent exertion to promote the
comfort and enjoyment of others. And the more this sacred and elevating
kind of enjoyment is tasted, the greater is the relish induced. Other
enjoyments often cloy; but the heavenly pleasure secured by virtuous
industry and benevolence, while it satisfies at the time, awakens fresh
desires for the continuance of so ennobling a good.




IX.

HEALTHFUL FOOD.


The person who decides what shall be the food and drink of a family,
and the modes of its preparation, is the one who decides, to a greater
or less extent, what shall be the health of that family. It is the
opinion of most medical men, that intemperance in eating is one of the
most fruitful of all causes of disease and death. If this be so, the
woman who wisely adapts the food and cooking of her family to the laws
of health removes one of the greatest risks which threatens the lives
of those under her care. But, unfortunately, there is no other duty
that has been involved in more doubt and perplexity. Were one to believe
all that is said and written on this subject, the conclusion probably
would be, that there is not one solitary article of food on God's earth
which it is healthful to eat. Happily, however, there are general
principles on this subject which, if understood and applied, will prove
a safe guide to any woman of common sense; and it is the object of the
following chapter to set forth these principles.

All material things on earth, whether solid, liquid, or gaseous, can
be resolved into sixty-two simple substances, only fourteen of which
are in the human body; and these, in certain proportions, in all
mankind.

Thus, in a man weighing 154 lbs. are found, 111 lbs. oxygen gas, and
14 lbs. hydrogen gas, which, united, form water; 21 lbs. carbon; 3
lbs. 8 oz. nitrogen gas; 1 lb. 12 oz. 190 grs. phosphorus; 2 lbs.
calcium, the chief ingredient of bones; 2 oz. fluorine; 2 oz. 219 grs.
sulphur; 2 oz 47 grs. chlorine; 2 oz. 116 grs. sodium; 100 grs. iron;
290 grs. potassium; 12 grs. magnesium; and 2 grs. silicon.

These simple substances are constantly passing out of the body through
the lungs, skin, and other excreting organs.

It is found that certain of these simple elements are used for one
part of the body, and others for other parts, and this in certain
regular proportions. Thus, carbon is the chief element of fat, and
also supplies the fuel that combines with oxygen in the capillaries
to produce animal heat. The nitrogen which we gain from our food and
the air is the chief element of muscle; phosphorus is the chief element
of brain and nerves; and calcium or lime is the hard portion of the
bones. Iron is an important element of blood, and silicon supplies the
hardest parts of the teeth, nails, and hair.

Water, which is composed of the two gases, oxygen and hydrogen, is the
largest portion of the body, forming its fluids; there is four times
as much of carbon as there is of nitrogen in the body; while there is
only two per cent as much phosphorus as carbon. A man weighing one
hundred and fifty-four pounds, who leads an active life, takes into
his stomach daily from two to three pounds of solid food, and from
five to six pounds of liquid. At the same time he takes into his lungs,
daily, four or five thousand gallons of air. This amounts to three
thousand pounds of nutriment received through stomach and lungs, and
then expelled from the body, in one year; or about twenty times the
man's own weight.

The change goes on in every minute point of the body, though in some
parts much faster than in others; as set forth in the piquant and
sprightly language of Dr. O. W. Holmes [Footnote: Atlantic Almanac,
1869, p. 40.], who, giving a vivid picture of the constant decay and
renewal of the body, says:

"_Every organized being always lives immersed in a strong solution
of its own elements._"

"Sometimes, as in the case of the air-plant, the solution contains all
its elements; but in higher plants, and in animals generally, some of
the principal ones only. Take our own bodies, and we find the atmosphere
contains the oxygen and the nitrogen, of which we are so largely made
up, as its chief constituents; the hydrogen, also, in its watery vapor;
the carbon, in its carbonic acid. What our air-bath does not furnish
us, we must take in the form of nourishment, supplied through the
digestive organs. But the first food we take, after we have set up for
ourselves, is air, and the last food we take is air also. We are all
chameleons in our diet, as we are all salamanders in our _habitats_,
inasmuch as we live always in the fire of our own smouldering
combustion; a gentle but constant flame, fanned every day by the same
forty hogsheads of air which furnish us not with our daily bread, which
we can live more than a day without touching, but with our momentary,
and oftener than momentary, aliment, without which we can not live five
minutes."

"We are perishing and being born again at every instant. We do literally
enter over and over again into the womb of that great mother, from
whom we get our bones, and flesh, and blood, and marrow. 'I die daily'
is true of all that live. If we cease to die, particle by particle,
and to be born anew in the same proportion, the whole movement of life
comes to an end, and swift, universal, irreparable decay resolves
our frames into the parent elements."

"The products of the internal fire which consumes us over and over
again every year, pass off mainly in smoke and steam from the lungs
and the skin. The smoke is only invisible, because the combustion is
so perfect. The steam is plain enough in our breaths on a frosty
morning; and an over-driven horse will show us, on a larger scale, the
cloud that is always arising from own bodies."

"Man walks, then, not only in a vain show, but wrapped in an uncelestial
aureole of his own material exhalations. A great mist of gases and of
vapor rises day and night from the whole realm of living nature. The
water and the carbonic acid which animals exhale become the food of
plants, whose leaves are at once lungs and mouths. The vegetable world
reverses the breathing process of the animal creation, restoring the
elements which that has combined and rendered effete for its own
purposes, to their original condition. The salt-water ocean is a great
aquarium. The air ocean in which we live is a 'Wardian case,' of larger
dimensions."

It is found that the simple elements will not nourish the body in their
natural state, but only when organized, either as vegetable or animal
food; and, to the dismay of the Grahamite or vegetarian school, it is
now established by chemists that animal and vegetable food contain the
same elements, and in nearly the same proportions.

Thus, in animal food, carbon predominates in fats, while in vegetable
food it shows itself in sugar, starch, and vegetable oils. Nitrogen
is found in animal food in the albumen, fibrin, and caseine; while in
vegetables it is in gluten, albumen, and caseine.

[Illustration: Fig. 55]

It is also a curious fact that, in all articles of food, the elements
that nourish diverse parts of the body are divided into separable
portions, and also that the proportions correspond in a great degree
to the wants of the body. For example, a kernel of wheat contains all
the articles demanded for every part of the body. Fig. 55 represents,
upon an enlarged scale, the position and proportions of the chief
elements required. The white central part is the largest in quantity,
and is chiefly carbon in the form of starch, which supplies fat and
fuel for the capillaries. The shaded outer portion is chiefly nitrogen,
which nourishes the muscles, and the dark spot at the bottom is
principally phosphorus, which nourishes the brain and nerves. And these
elements are in due proportion to the demands of the body. A portion
of the outer covering of a wheat-kernel holds lime, silica, and iron,
which are needed by the body, and which are found in no other part of
the grain. The woody fibre is not digested, but serves by its bulk and
stimulating action to facilitate digestion. It is therefore evident
that bread made of unbolted flour is more healthful than that made of
superfine flour. The process of bolting removes all the woody fibre;
the lime needed for the bones; the silica for hair, nails, and teeth;
the iron for the blood; and most of the nitrogen and phosphorus needed
for muscles, brain, and nerves.

Experiments on animals prove that fine flour alone, which is chiefly
carbon, will not sustain life more than a month, while unbolted flour
furnishes all that is needed for every part of the body. There are
cases where persons can not use such coarse bread, on account of its
irritating action on inflamed coats of the stomach. For such, a kind
of wheaten grit is provided, containing all the kernel of the wheat,
except the outside woody fibre.

When the body requires a given kind of diet, specially demanded by
brain, lungs, or muscles, the appetite will crave food for it until
the necessary amount of this article is secured. If, then, the food
in which the needed aliment abounds is not supplied, other food will
be taken in larger quantities than needed until that amount is gained.
For all kinds of food have supplies for every want of the body, though
in different proportions. Thus, for example, if the muscles are worked
a great deal, food in which nitrogen abounds is required, and the
appetite will continue until the requisite amount of nitrogen is
secured. If, then, food is taken which has not the requisite quantity,
the consequence is, that more is taken than the system can use, while
the vital powers are needlessly taxed to throw off the excess.

These facts were ascertained by Liebig, a celebrated German chemist
and physicist, who, assisted by his government, conducted experiments
on a large scale in prisons, in armies, and in hospitals. Among other
results, he states that those who use potatoes for their principal
food eat them in very much larger quantities than their bodies would
demand if they used also other food. The reason is, that the potato
has a very large proportion of starch that supplies only fuel for the
capillaries and very little nitrogen to feed the muscles. For this
reason lean meat is needed with potatoes.

In comparing wheat and potatoes we find that in one hundred parts wheat
there are fourteen parts nitrogen for muscle, and two parts phosphorus
for brain and nerves. But in the potato there is only one part in one
hundred for muscle, and nine tenths of one part of phosphorus for brain
and nerves.

The articles containing most of the three articles needed generally
in the body are as follows: for fat and heat-making--butter, lard,
sugar, and molasses; for muscle-making--lean meat, cheese, peas, beans,
and lean fishes; for brain and nerves--shell-fish, lean meats, peas,
beans, and very active birds and fishes who live chiefly on food in
which phosphorus abounds. In a meat diet, the fat supplies carbon for
the capillaries and the lean furnishes nutriment for muscle, brain,
and nerves. Green vegetable

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