Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1880 — FIRESIDE CHAT. [ARTICLE]

FIRESIDE CHAT.

Think with Method.—Under all the i circumstances in which you may be placed, trying or otherwise, think as steadily and clearly as your capacity will allow' you to do; compel your thought to bring you to some sort of conclusion, and then carry out the conclusion without consulting any human being. Clear thought, continuous thought and silence —all exercised on the daily trifles of life—these habits, which are none of i them difficult, wall so harden the mind i as in a very short period to make it incaI pable of indecision. Liberal Training.—One of our wisest public w'omen contends that if mothers 1 would train their girls as housekeepers, ■ at the youthful period when girls would be delighted to learn, they would then take to housekeeping as naturally as ; ducks take te water. She does not rec--1 ommend, however, that instruction : should be confined mainly to domestic duties, or that marriage should be considered the principal aim of the fair sex, ; but advocates a system of broad and liberal tuition which will fit women for any ; of the probable contingencies of life, render them self-dependent, and fully develop their varied faculties. A Mother’s Care.—No hireling ’ should be intrusted with the care of j children. A devoted mother says: “I devoted myself to the charge of my nursery ; I attended in person to the physi- \ cal and mental needs of my young chili dren. The work was laborious, but it has repaid me. They are healthy, brave, honest and frank; they are j cursed with none of the small vices contracted by intimate intercourse with i persons of inferior intelligence; arid i they are self-sustaining at an early pe--1 riod. Neither pert nor precocious, they i ripen early to judgment and common I sense, and 1 believe that the tillage of | my own little field has produced a harvest worth the labor. ” “Rich” Food.—Young housekeeper, ■ as you value health and leisure, don’t waste your time on elaborate cookery. A greater simplicity in the preparation of our food would save a full day out of ■ every w’eek to many a house-mother, and save many dear ones from the rack of ■ dyspepsia in later years. “Not one of mother’s children,” said a lady in middle life to me one day, “ but has suffered agonies from dyspepsia ; all the result of I mother’s splendid cooking. ” With proper ; dispatch an ample, wholesome and delicious pudding can be made in five min- ! utes and set in the oven to “cook ; itself,” while an indigestible pie takes a i great deal more time and wearying labor, and is not so satisfactory to a huni gry person’s appetite. Before you have Suite formed your household habits, link of this matter. Amelioration of Life’s Cares.—The busiest life may be made endurable by a i judicious lightening of its cares. If we I take no time for recreation and relief, no time for acts looking to the future i and a better life, the hour is certain to arrive, sooner or later, when a crisis will confront us, compelling us to do all these things which we so much neglect in the routine of business or professional life. How much better it is, then, to make rest, recreation, reflection, thoughts of a future and a better, purer and holier state of existence, a part of our daily experience, combining business with charity, industry with kind- ! ness, perseverance with fortitude, exj perience with religion, a commingling of qualities and hopes that lighten life as w r e go through the world, and add to the pleasures of the present with a view' I to the hereafter.