If parents did their whole duty, they would place the boys upon the farm, where they might grow strong and lay well the foundations of life, while the girls should bear a hand at making as well as eating bread.  The art of cooking is a science, by the way, very little understood, and there is scope and verge enough for any ordinary genius, and as noble a service to mankind may be accomplished by its mastery as any that comes within the pale of human life.

Health seems almost ignored in these later days by parents, so far as the training of their children is concerned.  Their overweening pride and love blinds them to what is their true duty.  They feel it would be so trying for their “dear boy” to do any kind of manual labor, and it is so bad that his delicate hands should be soiled and hardened by any toil, that they would deny themselves of even the necessaries of life in order their fair-haired boy may be thought such a “nice young man,” and so “genteel.”  Their judgment, however, is never in error with regard to some of the neighborhood “rapscallions.”  Their heads are perfectly level on the question of “those rowdy boys.”  Their advice is as sound as it is free.  They can predict with greater accuracy than can any of the second-sightseers as to the ultimate end of these embryo ladies’ men, good-for-nothings, sharpers, spendthrifts, and paupers.  They know the process full well whereby these boys can be transformed into strong, honest, enterprising, and useful citizens.  They do not forget, either, though many would but for an occasional gibe from some envious Mrs. Grundy, that both they and their husbands were the children of obscurity and poverty; which, rather than being any dishonor, as it is often thought, particularly by the vainer sex, is a badge of genuine honor and royal patent of the man’s energy and industry.

Witness the noble example set Republicans by the head of the most illustrious empire in the world, and consider how wise a Queen and mother may be, while her love for her family is not excelled by that of any other true and devoted mother.  She realizes the necessity and value of sound health, if long and useful lives are to be attained.  We see her sons doing duty for years in the ranks of the common sailor and soldier, enduring the privations and hardships incident to such service, and they thus secure not only health, but an insight into human life and thought and nature more valuable than any of the lessons learned from books.

All excesses in labor are to be reprehended, and not uncommon is it that we hear of health ruined and even life jeopardized by some foolish or thoughtless effort.  Young men ought to guard against strife in labor, which usually accompanies an ambition to excel.  We know of an instance where a company of boys, by lifting against each other, one was ruptured.  And again, an “itinerant” came along with a machine known as a lung-tester; one fair-haired, slender youth, having fears he would fall below the