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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,