CHAPTER I.

Produced by Steve Schulze, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks

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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.