The new female instructor; or, Young woman's guide to domestic happiness : being an epitome of all the acquirements necessary to form the female character, in every class of life: with examples of illustrious women. To which are added, advice to servants; a complete art of cookery, and plain directions for carving: also, a great variety of medicinal and other useful receipts in domestic economy; and numerous interesting articles, forming a complete storehouse of valuable knowledge.

Date:
[1824]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The new female instructor; or, Young woman's guide to domestic happiness : being an epitome of all the acquirements necessary to form the female character, in every class of life: with examples of illustrious women. To which are added, advice to servants; a complete art of cookery, and plain directions for carving: also, a great variety of medicinal and other useful receipts in domestic economy; and numerous interesting articles, forming a complete storehouse of valuable knowledge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    I believe this picture to convey no exaggerated represeota- tiou of the state of things, which is often w'ituessed in Uie higher ranks of society. I fear too, that it is a picture to which the practice of the middle ranks, thought at present not fully corresponding, bears a continually increasing resem- blance. The extreme, however, which has been described, has, like every other extreme, its opposite. There are mothers who profess to initiate their daughters, almost from the cradle, into the knowledge, as they are wont to express themselves, of life; and pollute the years of childhood with an instilled at- tachment to the card-table; with habits of flippancy and pert- ness, denominated wit; with an “ easiness” of manners, which ought to be named effrontery ; and with a knowledge of tales of scandal, unfit to be mentioned by any one but in a court of justice. Both these extremes are most dangerous to every thing that is valuable m the female character; to every thing on which happiness m the present world and in a future world depends. But of the two the latter is the iiiost pernicious. In that system war is carried on almost from infancy, and car- ried on in the most detestable manner, against female delicacy and innocence. In the former, that delicacy and that innocence are exposed under the greatest disadvantages to the sudden in- fluence of highly-fascinating allurements. It may be hoped, however, that, coming to the encounter as yet little impaired, they may have some chances of escaping without severe injury. At any rate, be this chance ever so small, it is greater than the probability, that when assailed from their earliest dawn by slow poison incessantly administered, they should ultimately survive. To accustom the mind by degrees to the trials which it must learn to witlistand, yet to shelter it from insidious temptations, while it is unable to discern and to shun the snare, is the first rule which wisdom suggests with regard to all trials and temp- tations whatever. To this rule too much attention cannot be paid in the mode of introducing a young woman into the com- mon habits of social intercourse. Let her not be distracted in the years by nature particularly designea for the cultivation of the understanding and the acquisition cf Knowledge, by the turbulence and glare of polite amusements Let her not be suffered to taste the draugnt whicli me w'orld offers to her, until she has learned that, if there be sweetness on the surface, there is venom deeper in ihe cup; until she has acquired a right judgment and a well-airectea taste as to the pursuits and pleasures of life, or, according to tne lan- guage of the apostle, has become aisposeo “ to approve the things which are excellent;” and is fortified with those uriii-