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[216]

As I now regard these matters, I would say to every young girl, rich or poor, gifted or dull: ‘Learn to make a home, and learn this in the days in which learning is easy. Cultivate a habit of vigilance and forethought. With a reasonable amount of intelligence, a woman should be able to carry on the management of a household, and should yet have time for art and literature in some sort.’

In more recent years, having been called upon to take part in a public discussion regarding the compatibility of domestic with literary occupation, I endeavored to formulate the results of my own experience as follows:—

If you have at your command three hours per diem, you may study art, literature, and philosophy, not as they are studied professionally, but in the degree involved in general culture.

If you have but one hour in every day, read philosophy, or learn foreign languages, living or dead.

If you can command only fifteen or twenty minutes, read the Bible with the best commentaries, and daily a verse or two of the best poetry.

As I write this, I recall the piteous image of two wrecks of women, Americans and wives of Americans, who severally poured out their sorrows to me, saying that the preparation of ‘three square meals a day,’ the washing, baking, sewing,

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