Young Womans Guide, The

The Young Woman's Guide

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Young Woman's Guide, by William A. Alcott Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
Title: The Young Woman's Guide
Author: William A. Alcott
Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9054] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on September 1, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG WOMAN'S GUIDE ***

Produced by Stan Goodman, Michelle Shephard and Distributed Proofreaders

THE YOUNG WOMAN'S GUIDE
by
William A. Alcott

[Illustration: Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books, Ease and alternate labour, useful life, Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven! Thomson]
PREFACE.
This work was begun, soon after the appearance of the Young Man's Guide--and was partially announced to the public. For reasons, however, which I have not room to give in this place, it was thought proper to defer its publication till the appearance of several other volumes in the same spirit, involving more particularly the relative duties.
I wish to have it distinctly understood, that I do not propose to give a complete manual of the social and moral duties of young women. Every one has his own way of looking at things, and I have mine. Some of the duties of young women have appeared to me to receive from other writers less attention than their comparative importance demands; and others-- especially those which are connected with the great subject of "temperance in all things"--I have believed to be treated, in several respects, erroneously.
Permit me, however, to say, that while I have not intended to follow the path, or repeat the ideas of any other writer, I have not attempted to avoid either the one or the other. If I have presented here and there a thought which had already come before the public from my own pen, I can only say that I did not intend it, although I did not take special pains to avoid it. The sum is this. I have presented my thoughts, without so much reference to what has already been said by myself or others, as to what I have supposed to be the necessities of those for whom I write. I have gone straight forward, asking no questions; and I trust I shall be dealt with in a manner equally direct.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
EXPLANATION OF TERMS.
Defining terms. The word excellence here used as nearly synonymous with holiness. What is meant by calling the work a Guide. The term Woman-- why preferable, as a general term, to Lady. The class to whom this work is best adapted.

CHAPTER II.
FEMALE RESPONSIBILITIES.
Comparison of the responsibilities of young men and young women. Saying of Dr. Rush. Its application to young women. Definition of the term education. Bad and good education. Opinions of Solomon. Influence of a young woman in a family--in a school. Anecdotes of female influence. West, Alexander, C?sar, Franklin. Story of a domestic in Boston. The good she is doing. Special influence of young women in families--and as sisters. Female influence in the renovation of the world.

CHAPTER III.
SELF-EDUCATION.
Views of Agesilaus, king of Sparta--of Solomon, king of Israel. Mistake corrected. What the wisest and best parents cannot do. What, therefore, remains to the daughter. Necessity of self-education. The work of self education the work of life--a never-ending progress upward to the throne of God.

CHAPTER IV.
LOVE OF IMPROVEMENT.
Female capabilities. Doing every thing in the best possible manner. Unending progress. Every person and every occupation susceptible of improvement, indefinitely. Doing well what is before us. Anecdote illustrative of this principle. Personal duties. Two great classes of persons described. Hopes of reaching the ears of the selfish.

CHAPTER V.
SELF-KNOWLEDGE.
Vast extent of the science of self-knowledge. Spurious self-knowledge. Knowledge of our physical frame--its laws and relations. Examples of the need of this knowledge. Instruments of obtaining it. The use of lectures. Study of our peculiarities. Study of mental philosophy. The Bible. How the Bible should be studied.

CHAPTER VI.
CONSCIENTIOUSNESS.
Is there any conscientiousness in the world? How far conscientiousness should extend. Tendency and power of habit. Evils of doing incessantly what we know to be wrong.