HEALTH-THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. THE Consideration of health and its conditions is a question that has hitherto been very much confined to the doctor class, just as religion has been left to the care of the clerical class. The public, having at their command the services of a large staff of highly educated men of both these classes, have come to regard medicine and religion as professional affairs; and they go to church on Sundays, and send for the doctor when they are ill, troubling their heads little further about either the one matter or the other. But the people at large have really a very serious practical interest in both these questions, though it is only with that of health and its conditions that we have now more especially to do. In the present state of English society, with its population daily increasing, its towns rapidly enlarging, and its metropolis a kingdom of brick and mortar, the diffusion of sound knowledge concerning animal life, and its dependence upon external circumstances, is becoming more and more a primary want. Ignorance on this point is productive of vice and suffering among all classes, to a much greater extent than is generally supposed. It is, however, only when the prevalence of want has issued in a brood of frightful pestilential disease, which, after doing its fatal work in the dwellings of the poor, is wafted on the impartial wind into the dwellings of the rich, that the Health of Towns' question can be brought to excite a passing interest. And no sooner has the pestilence ceased, than the question is shelved, until another contagion, more fatal than before, again startles society from its apathy into a temporary activity and interest in this important question. Now, we would impress upon the minds of our readers, the necessity of their, each and every one, taking a personal interest in this business. It matters little what the egislature is doing,-though let us be thankful that it has done something, and municipal corporations also are in some quarters moving actively in the same good work; but unless the people themselves take up the question, carry it with them into their homes, and see to the daily practice of cleanliness, temperance, ventilation, and wholesome ways of living there, comparatively little benefit will issue from the Sanitary Movement. The legislature and the corporations may cleanse our streets, secure their being made broad enough, and see to their efficient drainage; but into the home they cannot enter, and all the important influences which they operate upon the human being from birth till death, must be considered as quite beyond their reach. While recognising, therefore, the importance of all public measures for the promotion of the sanitary improvement of towns, we would endeavour to impress on the minds of those on whom the internal economy of [PRICE 14d. households depend, the importance of their taking the necessary steps to secure the physical health, comfort, and well-being of the members. All classes, even the best educated and circumstanced, are too regardless of those means for the preservation of health and strength, which even a slender knowledge of the laws of physiology would teach them to be essentially requisite for that purpose. Premature and painful deaths, caused by conditions that are avoidable, constitute the vast majority of cases recorded in the registers of civilized society. The impurity which prevails in the most densely populated districts of our large towns, creates a very atmosphere of disease, in which life is only a protracted dying. It is not only that existence is abridged among the poor by deficient food, but it is much more frequently so by the want of fresh air, by the want of light, by the want of exercise and cheerful recreation, by defective clothing, and by a low state of domestic economy. Even when there is food enough, the physical circumstances which surround families are often eminently pernicious. Sufficient food is only one of the many conditions required for the healthy existence of the human being. Pure air and cleanliness are quite as important, for man does not live by bread alone. A family may have enough to eat, and yet be suffering daily from the effects of ignorant, and often unconscious, self-abuse; contaminated by every touch, inhaling poison in every breath they draw. But nature and her laws will not be violated with impunity. Man has been endowed with reason, that he may discern those laws, and live in conformity with them; and if he will not discern and apply them, he must suffer. Thus, when the laws of physiology are violated-when men and women will live in daily neglect of their teachings, and subject their children to pernicious physical influences, one and all of them are rendered doubly liable to disease and death. This neglect of the conditions of daily health is a frightfully costly thing. It costs the rich a great deal of money in the shape of poor-rates, for the support of widows made husbandless, and children made fatherless, by cholera and typhus. It costs a great deal too in subscriptions, to maintain dispensaries, infirmaries, houses of recovery, and asylums for the destitute. It costs the poor still more; it costs them their health, which is their only capital. In this is invested their all: if they lose it, their docket is struck, and they are bankrupt. How frightful is the neglect, whether it be on the part of society, or of individuals, which robs the poor man of his health, and makes his life a daily death! There are anti-war societies in England, which deprecate the results of war in all their hideous forms of death, and pain, and vice. We want societies against foul air, and unhealthy dwellings, which are also much more destructive than war, far more insidious, and less easy to escape or retreat from. Hear what Dr. South the heart and lungs of the people be brought into frequent communication with the freshening influences of nature, and of letting their minds and bodies taste, as often as may be, of her sweetness and healthfulness. And let this great fact be held duly in mind, that, whatever Government may do in the promotion of sanitary measures, the great burthen of this work must always rest with the people themselves. wood Smith says of the ill-drained districts in the east of parks and gardens for recreation of all classes, are still London:-"The poorer classes in their neglected local-wanted in many of our large towns; there is need that ities and dwellings are exposed to causes of disease and death which are peculiar to them, the operation of which is steady, unceasing, sure; and the result is the same as if twenty or thirty thousand of these people were annually taken out of their wretched dwellings, and put to death; the actual fact being, that they are allowed to remain in them and die. It has been stated that the annual slaughter in England and Wales, from preventable causes of typhus fever, which attacks persons in the vigour of life, is double the amount of what was suffered by the allied armies in the battle of Waterloo." We are persuaded that this is no exaggerated statement. On an average of years, more than eight thousand persons annually fall victims to typhus fever in Glasgow alone. Now, we are shocked by the news of a murder-the loss of a single life by physical causes! And yet, we can bear almost without a shudder the reiterated statement of the loss of ten thousands of lives yearly from physical causes in daily operation, and make little or no effort for their removal. WHAT IS THE VALUE OF A PENNY? WHAT will it buy? Of what esteem is it in the monetary market? To a person of moderate calibre in society, what earthly good is a solitary penny? The beggarly coin, assaulting the counterscarp of our pocket, seems as ridiculous and futile as a single rank-and-file besieging the entrenchments of a citadel! Such were our mournful, and, partly, philosophical reflections, as trudging home, one cold and drizzly after But it is not the mere loss of life only that is so appal-noon in December, from the county town, whereat we had ling; there is moral death also in the unhealthy locality. expended all our ready cash, except this one reproachful The connection is close and intimate between physical copper, the last descendant of a long line of silver, that and moral health, between domestic well-being and public seemed to upbraid us for keeping it in solitary confinehappiness. The destructive influence of an unwholesome ment. But, though bearing the censure of the copper, dwelling propagates a moral typhus worse than the the fault was not our own, nor did it proceed from any plague itself. When the body is enfeebled by the de- dereliction of the laws of self-interest. An inexorable pressing influences of vitiated air and such like, the mind, tailor-one of those scourges of society that, from the almost of necessity, takes the same low, unhealthy tone. earliest ages, have been a gentleman's bitterest enemySelf-respect is lost; a stupid, inert, languid feeling over- and a compulsory tradesman or two, had, much against powers the system; the character becomes depraved; the strong affinity of our heart and purse, ruthlessly and too often-eager to snatch even a momentary enjoy-severed the congenial ties, and laid their several embargos ment of full life, to feel again the blood bounding in the upon the allegiance we owed the sovereigns of our own veins, and ideas coursing each other through the mind-personal dominions, and, one by one, tore them asunder. the miserable victim flies to the demon of strong drink It was under the melancholy bereavement of this for relief; hence misery, infamy, shame, crime, and wretchedness. The Health of Towns Commissioners, in their second Report, observe with truth, that "a large class of crimes, arising from intemperance and the indulgence of vicious propensities, is much fostered by the low state of physical comforts, which leads to the use of stimulating drinks, and to other methods of imparting false strength to a reduced system. These act with the greatest intensity on the inhabitants of those places where filth, and the absence of facilities for its removal, depress the energies and engender disease." Self-respect, that root of so many fine virtues, must have pure air, and domestic cleanliness and comfort, as the soil on which it is to grow. Three-fourths of the petty vices which degrade society, and swell into crimes which disgrace it, would shrink before the light of selfrespect. To encourage, therefore, the growth of this root of the virtues, the magistrate must see to the provision of well-paved streets, covered sewers, buildings with efficient ventilation, and a plentiful supply of pure water; and the people themselves must carry into effect, in their several homes, a practical observance of those simple and intelligible laws by which health is regulated. We know that there are many of the poorer classes whom such counsel will not yet reach; whose cupboards are empty, and whose walls are bare; whose necessities make them shrink into any hole or corner which is open for them; whose earnings are so small, that the provision of a comfortable home is next to an impossibility. Still, there is a very large proportion of the working classes, who have it in their power to live more wisely, healthfully, and happily than they do, by the observance of the natural laws. On such we would urge the practice of habitual cleanliness, temperance, and domestic economy. Women have much in their power as regards all these elements of physical and moral well-being. The health and comfort of households are in their power. Let all efforts to establish baths and wash-houses be encouraged. Public severance of our richest ties, and saddened by the contrast of our outgoings and our incomings, that we fell into the doleful train of reflection we have recorded above. "Three, nineteen, and eleven! and one penny, makes four pounds; thank you, Sir!" observed the irascible tailor, as he clutched our four lovely sovereigns, and handed us a dirty copper, and a well-worn ragged bit of paper, called a receipt, in exchange for so much beauty of feature and finish. With a deep malediction-which, for prudential motives, we muttered to ourselves-we strode, with all the indignant feelings of an injured gentleman, from the presence of the man who had so shamefully abused our generous intentions of patronizing him more extensively, and cut us abruptly short in our philanthropic resolves. But to return to our pariah penny. "What!" we exclaimed, growing irritated at the remembrance of our collapsed purse, and rendered savage by the spiteful rain, that began to sound with destructive violence upon our new gossamer, bought in a moment of delusive sunshine, and which, in the full confidence of heavenly serenity, we were bearing home, on our august head. "What good is this old dirty bit of copper to us?" we continued, propounding our queries aloud, and striving to get over the last half-mile before the threatening storm should deprive us of all the garniture of our new hat, a point we felt to be far from problematical. "Though history tells us that twelve sparrows were bought for a penny, who, in these metallic days, would take the trouble to catch one for twice two pennies? Confound the penny! It is quite an insult to be burthened with such plebeian rubbish. And such a mean, battered thing; why, a beggar would not condescend to pick it up. We won't go home with it, that's flat. Better have a positive nothing, than such a negative something! We'll throw the tailor's paltry balance to the But just as we were about to dive into the vasty regions of our bankrupt pocket, to drag the offensive coin to the light of reprobation, we were hastily admonished, that if we had any regard to the salvation of our four-and-nine, to seek the shelter of a cart-lodge that stood hard by, inviting us, with open sides, to take advantage of the hospitality of its roof, from a perfect cataract that came spouting down, playing over our gossamer, with all the malicious exuberance of a fire-engine. "It is very cold and very wet to-day, Sir," observed a poor woman, seated on one of the shafts of a waggon, as we hurriedly entered the shed. "Very," was the discourteous reply, as we shook ourselves, like a Newfoundland dog just out of the water, but without any of the playful grimaces of the honest quadruped. "Would you please sit down, Sir?" resumed the woman in a foreign accent, rising respectfully from her hard seat, and removing her basket of wares from the opposite shaft, and coming out of the rods, to make way for our entrance. There was a tone in the voice, and a courtesy in the manner, in which she offered the most sheltered portion of the exposed lodge to our use, that touched us at once, and-why not own it-brought a blush to our cheek. Compromising with the poor woman's kindness, we made her resume her place, and making a chair of the vacant shaft, entered into conversation with the female hawker, for such she appeared; for as we lifted her basket out of the wet into the waggon, we perceived that her stock in trade, a very scanty one, consisted of a few infantile books, a wooden doll or two, sundry reels of cotton and eins of thread; these with half-a-dozen boxes of lucifers, and a few bits of stick picked up in her day's perambulation, comprised the whole wealth of her wicker shop. To our inquiries, she said she was a German by birth, and had come with her husband and children to England three years ago, but had lost them all, and was now alone in the world, without friend or kindred; but observing me about to rise, for the rain was abating, she timidly inquired, if "the good lady at home wanted any little thing out of her basket?" Why, really, my good woman," we replied, humiliated at our inability to respond to her appeal, and giving the tailor an extra curse, in the profundity of our heart, for fleecing us to the last stiver, "the fact is, we have actually no money left, or we would have looked at your wares before; no, not a shilling!" "A shilling! God bless me! A shilling would buy all my basket." 'No, not even a sixpence!" "Oh, Sir, I could not think you buy so much, if you had;" she replied ingenuously, and in much surprise at such an idea. "Really not a farthing, but this dirty old," and we grasped the hated copper. "Thank you, never the same, Sir; nobody buy more than a penny of me at a time. A penny buy much," she resumed, observing us dive desperately into our pocket. "We meant to say, we had nothing but this one penny; and if it can be of any use to you, you are heartily welcome to it." So saying, we thrust it into her hand. "What will you please take, Sir?" she inquired, rising to her basket. To our repudiation of such an idea, she overwhelmed us with thanks; said it was the first farthing she had taken that day, and that the penny was quite a blessing to her. "Such a trifle is not worth your thanks, good woman." "Oh, Sir!" she rejoined, earnestly, "it is a deal for a poor woman to be thankful for. This penny will buy many things." 66 Ah, indeed!" we exclaimed with some interest, as the thought of our knotty difficulty being solved, flashed through our mind. "What, on earth, of any possible good, will a single penny buy?" "Me tell you, Sir what it buy for poor people, and God keep you never know! First, it buy bread enough for my breakfast and supper; then a little tea, for two times; and then it buy six pounds of coal, enough for three nights' firing. And only think, Sir, what cold long nights these are, and no fire at all." "Six pounds of coal!" we exclaimed, in amazement. "Is it possible that poverty can go to market on so little! and warmth, the body's twin aliment with food, may be bought at a penny's cost! Truly, necessity is a great school, and poverty a stern-faced teacher!" Reseating ourselves, we put various questions to the poor creature, which led to the following detail from her lips, and which, for the knowledge of those who, like ourselves, were ignorant of the virtue of a penny, we give in full : "I and my husband and three little children, came over to this country nearly three years ago, Sir; but my husband was run over in the streets of London, the first week he got here, and died in the hospital from the hurts he got in his back! That was a sad trial, Sir; and I thought my heart would break, left a lone woman in a strange country, with my little children, and no home, nor no money in the world. I thought nothing could be worse than that, Sir; but, I did'nt know what sorer troubles I had to bear. Well, God is still very good. With the few shillings the gentleman gave me at the inquest, I bought a basket and some little trifles, as threads and needles, children's books, matches, and dolls; and with my infant on my back, and one of my children in each hand, trudged over the country, and came at last to this town; and took a bit of a room at ninepence a week, where I used to leave my children, with a morsel of fire to keep them warm, while I went round the country, one day this way, another that; never coming home till night. Sometimes I took a sixpence, and sometimes less, and often nothing at all. And, oh, Sir! how my heart used to ache when my little ones came out, when they heard my step on the stair, and ask me if I bring any supper home, for they were very hungry! They were terrible days and nights, those Sir, with my hungry and shivering children. God knows they were; but they were happy ones compared to now-to now," and her voice broke, and she broke into tears, "for I had something to live for, and give me heart to labour-but its very different now.' "Why did you not strive to get back to your own country, when you lost your husband?" we inquired, as the poor creature paused. "I did, Sir, I did, and walked all the way to Dover, to see the consul, and ask him to send me over the water, with the children, and then I'd beg my way to Nassau, my native place, where I was sure of a home at my sister's. But as soon as I got to Dover, my baby was taken with the small-pox, and though the parish doctor was very good and kind, the poor little thing died six days after. Well, Sir, I can't expect you to feel for my sorrows. At last, I saw the consul, but he could'nt do nothing for me, he said, but bid me try and get an honest living where I was; and then he gave me a sixpence, and sent me away." "A sixpence! The heartless possible!" we cried, indignantly. ! A sixpence, im "God Almighty knows it is true; and I had eighteen miles to walk back to my lodging. Well, Sir, it was last winter, and a bitter cold day; and while I was away in the snow, miles off, my little ones had got a few sticks and made a fire, for we'd no coals, to keep them warm; when somehow-I never heard the rights of it-my girl's clothes caught fire, and God knows she had few enough on; and the neighbours ran in, when they heard my child's shriek, and put out the fire, and had her off to the infirmary; and there she lay, Sir, three whole months before she died, suffering like a martyr. But that was not at all, Sir, for the very day she died, my little Billy, who pined away after his sister, caught the measles, and-God be good to me--I lost him, Sir, ten days after the other. Oh dear! oh dear! then I knew, Sir, what grief was, and misery too. And I thought for certain my heart would break, for I had such a pain here, and tightness in my throat, that I could not breathe, or get a minute's rest. But the landlady turned me out, for I had'nt paid the last week's rent, for I could'nt go out while my last child was a dying, Sir. And though it was a cold empty room, with nothing on earth but a bundle of straw, and an old chair, it had been a long time the home of my children. And it was like losing them all again, to be turned out of it; but I had to go, Sir, and leave my basket with the woman, till I could pay the rent. And what became of me for some days I don't rightly know, for I think I must have lost my senses; for when I came to myself, three days after, I was a lying wet and very cold, under a hay stack, a long, long way off. But the rain's over, Sir, and you are very good to listen to a poor woman's troubles. Thank you, Sir, many times, for your goodness-for I can get myself a little drop of tea to night, to warm me, with your good money. God I hope to bless you, Sir, and I give you my hearty thanks." And rising up, the poor woman prepared to leave the shed, preparatory to her yet long journey home; but we did not, however, allow her to depart, till she had been directed the way to our domicile, and given injunctions that she should weekly call, as she took her rounds, at our residence. That she had complied with this request, is evidenced every Monday morning by our youngest boy running in with delight to apprise his mother, that the German woman-for whom he entertains a colloquial partiality, is come again; and while soliciting money for his juvenile speculations, reminds his father, that the bereaved outcast who has sought the temporary luxury of his hearth, was the first teacher who taught him the golden lesson, of how little may give comfort to the necessitous, and what real value there is in a penny. ILLUSTRATIONS OF POPULAR PROVERBS. "The watched pot never boils." WE very much question whether there was ever such a busy, bustling, fussy woman as Mrs. Valentine Smith; at least, we never met with one that was anything like a match for her, in the art of making "much ado about nothing;" an art common enough, it is true, and practised to an amazing extent both in private and public life. Mrs. Smith kept her servant in a constant worry; she was here, and there, and everywhere at once; from the attic to the kitchen, from the kitchen to the attic, and even down into the cellar, was this notable housewife rushing from morning to night, as though her very life depended upon her keeping constantly in motion. "Let us then be up and doing," she would say to Mr. Valentine, who, although rather a "fast man," was not nearly fast enough for her; "With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, hose who pause will be too late." It will be seen here that she had, according to her notions, amended the text of Longfellow, whose beautiful "Psalm of Life" was, upon the whole, a great favourite with her, because it taught, as she said, the great lesson that we should always "keep moving." "Learn to labour, and to wait." she thought was the only weak line in the poem; and, therefore, she substituted the above words, without exactly knowing what those who "paused" would be "too late" for; it might be for a dinner, or an evening party; a steam-boat or railway excursion, a play, or a sermon these, and the management of domestic affairs, comprehended all that she understood of "the great business of life;" and the more of this business she could get through in a little time, the better did she conceive she was doing her duty. And so, as we said before, it was hurry, and bustle, and drive with her from year to year; and yet, somehow, matters did not prosper with her; almost every thing she put her hand to she spoilt, simply because she was in too much of a hurry-could not wait for results; but would insist upon outstripping Time, and was so constantly pulling at the old gentleman's forelock, and urging him to move faster, that he grew vexed and angry, and refused to yield to her those good gifts which he bestowed upon others, who were more patient and mindful of his often apparently slow, yet sure and steady, progress. "Confound the stuff! it never will boil, I do believe," said Mrs. Valentine Smith, as she stood by the parlour fire, watching a pint of milk which was simmering in a saucepan, and which was intended to be poured over some bread for her husband's breakfast, as soon as it should reach the point of ebullition. "Here have I been standing for the last quarter of an hour or more, watching that provoking milk, and it wont boil. How very tiresome it is, to be sure. Then, going to the door, she called out, "Jane! bring another stick or two; this milk will not boil !” Whereat Jane remarked to her fellow-servant, that "Missus had much better have left it in the kitchen, where there was a good fire which would have biled it in no time." The wood was taken up, and duly inserted by "Missus," piece by piece, between the bars, a process which was attended by some soiling of the fingers, and scorching of the face, already sufficiently red and flustered; and the sticks ignited and crackled, and the little tongues of flame, like fiery serpents, wreathed and curled around the saucepan, and still the milk would not boil; then the impatient lady called for the bellows, and puffed away with nervous vigour. To sit quiet for a minute or two, and wait, was quite out of the question; to go about anything else was equally so; and so she hunted up all the scraps of paper, letter envelopes, and loose leaves of books that were to be readily laid hands on, and offered them up to this lacteal Moloch. Talk of "Patience upon a monument, smiling at grief," what was that to Mrs. Smith upon the hearth-rug, almost weeping over the milk that would not boil, with one eye fixed steadfastly upon the saucepan, and the other wander. ing restlessly around the room in search of more waifs and strays in the paper way. She had already begun to cast longing looks on a chair with a broken leg, and it was plain that Tommy Smith's spotted horse, and Julia's plump-faced doll, would not much longer escape the fiery destruction which they well merited, for having wandered out of their proper sphere-the nursery. Mrs. Smith had already made predatory excursions to the book-case, and the chiffonier drawers, when she heard a sound, the import of which she knew but too well; and turning, she beheld the milk, which she had tended so long and so carefully, foaming over the sides of the saucepan, as if intent upon getting into the fire and out of the way of her superintending anxiety, as quickly as possible. Oh! what an injured woman did Mrs. Smith conceive herself to be, then; she that was always trying so hard, and using so much exertion, to make matters go on smoothly-to have every thing nice and comfortable upstairs and down-stairs, and all over the house. And injured she really was, by those personal enemies of hersthe fire and the milk, which had evidently formed a malicious coalition to discomfit and annoy her. And insult was added to injury, for, just at that moment, down to his breakfast came Mr. Smith, and observing her flushed and heated appearance, and quickly learning the cause, he said, with that provoking smile of his, 'Why, my dear Julia, you surely were intended for a maid of all work, and not for the wife of a Treasury clerk. What could possess you to have the milk up here to boil? Look at your nice bright bars; of course you will clean them; that will only be fair and proper, you know." Then, observing her eyes were beginning to fill with tears, he changed his tone of irony into one of kindness, and continued, horse and doll, who were quite young, and the quiet demure young lady and gentleman who now walked into the room, with their mamma, and gave him the morning's greeting in as cold, and proper, and precise a manner as though they had been two automatons, and then took their places at the breakfast-table, looking as if a load of cares and griefs, too heavy for expression, lay upon their young hearts crushingly, and deadened all their feelings and faculties. Whether it was that Mr. Smith, from be "But never mind; it is not so great a disaster after all; I am a little out of sorts, and do not think milk would be quite the thing; so ring for the coffee, and siting as he had said "a little out of sorts," was more prone down quietly. But, first of all, go and wash your hands and face, that's a good creature. Why, one would think that you had had all the stoves in the house to clean, since you got up this morning, and the fires to light into the bargain." And here he began to relapse into his former tone of irony; so Mrs. Smith thought it best to go and perform the necessary ablutions, and to put herself a little to rights; which she did with remarkable celerity, and returned, in a few minutes, with her eldest son and daughter, the one about ten, and the other eight years of age, who, since six o'clock, had been pursuing their studies in their bed-rooms. to reflection than common on this particular morning, or that the practical illustration of his wife's forcing system, which he had just witnessed, followed so closely as it was by the appearance of the two living examples of the mischievous results of that system now before him, made him think more deeply and observe more closely than he was wont to do, we cannot say; but certain it was that, instead of being satisfied with a mere glance and a smile, and a joke or two upon their studious looks and want of animation, he sat gazing and gazing on them, until, when they left the room, throwing down the paper, which he had taken up but could not read, he turned to Mrs. Smith and said, "My dear Julia, you are killing these children, you are indeed, in your absurd haste to complete their education. They will die early, take my word for it; or, if they live, it will be as useless members of society, having both their mental and bodily powers weakened and impaired by the severe discipline to which you are subjecting them, at a time when they are unfit to bear it. The human frame, as well as the mind, requires exercise, relaxation, and amusement; and the fruits of instruction, like those of the earth, if forced into premature development, will assuredly disappoint our expectations, possessing few nutritive or lasting qualities. There is a certain time required for the perfecting of every work; and as reasonable would it be for the husbandman to set himself down by his field of sprouting corn, and expect, by watch In the education of her children, as in every other matter, Mrs. Smith was an advocate of the forcing system. It is unknown the number of schools to which she had put them and taken them away again, after a short time, because they did not "get on" fast enough. She had no patience with the tedious methods of instruction practised by all the teachers of "the young idea," who had come under her notice; and had, therefore, adopted and was carrying out a plan of her own, by which she expected that the work of education, usually extended over many years, might be accomplished in half the time or less. She had been trying this plan for about two years, but it had not, as yet, yielded any great results; although she had watched for them, very eagerly, too, and gone through pretty much the same processes as she had that morning tried with the milk, which would not boiling it and pulling at the green blades, to make it grow while it was looked at, and would when the superintending care was withdrawn, and then boiled furiously and to waste. As Mrs. Smith had taken the saucepan of milk out of the hands of those whose proper province it was to give it due attention, so had she taken her children's minds from under the care of the persons best qualified to train and educate them, for she could not bear, as she said, to see them getting on so slowly; there must, she was sure, be something wrong in the system; it was her belief that schoolmasters and mistresses only taught the children so gradually, in order that they might be kept at school the longer, and she meant to show what could be done by the forcing system at home. She, therefore, had engaged, as her coadjutor, a daily governess—a thin spare person, with true grey eyes and a sharp nose, who spoke very quickly and snappishly, walked briskly, and seemed always in as great a hurry as Mrs. Smith herself. But let it not be supposed that this professed instructor of youth had the sole and whole direction of Miss and Master Smith's education; she came but to work out the minute details of their mamma's comprehensive plans, and to act according to her directions. She, as we before intimated, had taken the matter into her own hands; and it was at once laughable and pitiable to see how unceasingly, with the poker of indiscretion and the bellows of impatience, she stirred and blew the fire of instruction, beneath the saucepan of understanding; and how the more she stirred, and the more she blew, and worried and flustered herself, the less chance there appeared of the accomplishment of her wishes. The minds of her children, like the milk, would not be forced into the boiling stage of perfection; and poor Mrs. S. was almost at her wits' ends, at the very apparent failure of her hopes and efforts. Mr. Smith was an easy, careless, good-natured man, fond of society, fond of his wife and children, of which he had four, the before alluded to owners of the spotted the faster, as for you to endeavour, as you are constantly doing, to effect your objects, and realize your wishes, by all this hurry and impatience, which but defeats the one, and renders the other longer, if not impossible, of attainment. The husbandman, you know, sows his corn, and, except giving due attention to it at the proper periods, leaves it entirely to the elements, feeling assured that he will reap the fruits in due season; so the judicious instructor will plant the seeds of knowledge in the mind, and leave them to expand, and germinate, and fructify, neither neglectful of their proper cultivation nor overanxious to witness speedy results from his labours. Do, my dear, give up this forcing system this plan of doing every thing in a hurry, and you will find that we shall go on much more pleasantly, and, in the long run, more quickly, depend upon it. I have, hitherto, been too neglectful of what was going on at home-too careless and indifferent about domestic affairs; thus the duties and responsibilities of the family have all seemed to rest upon you. But, for the future, it shall not be so; let the altered line be restored in your favourite poem; and let the lesson which it teaches be well considered by both of us, that while I "learn to labour," you may "learn to wait," for the desired results of our united efforts for our mutual happiness, and the preparation of our children for the life which is here and hereafter. Mrs. Smith was astonished, and affected, and, by degrees, convinced. This appeal to her heart and judgment operated beneficially; and had her husband talked to her in this way before, she would sooner have become the altered woman which she henceforth was. The sharpnosed governess forthwith had her dismissal, and the children were allowed to go through the usual routine of education; there was less bustle and hurry in the house, and yet the household concerns were better managed; there was no such continual change of servants as there |