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