A woman cannot work at dressmaking, tailoring, or any other sedentary employment, ten hours a day, year in and out, without enfeebling her constitution, impairing her eyesight, and bringing on a complication of complaints; but she can sweep, cook, wash, and do the duties of a well-ordered house, with modern arrangements, and grow healthier every year.  The times in New England when all women did housework a part of every day, were the times when all women were healthy.—­Harriet Beecher Stowe.

    The best ways are commonly the easiest ways and those that give most
    comfort to the household. Know how is a great labor-saving
    invention, on which there is no patent.—­Sel.

     Who sweeps a room as for God’s law
     Makes that and th’ action fine.

    —­George Herbert.

A YEAR’S BREAKFASTS & DINNERS

What to get for the family meals is frequently a most perplexing problem, especially when one remembers the many important points that should enter into the arrangement of the daily bill of fare.  A well-arranged menu should be composed of articles which supply the requisite amount of food elements for proper nutrition, palatably prepared.  These should be adapted to the season and also to the family purse.  There should be an agreeable and pleasing change from day to day, with never too great variety at one meal, and no incongruous association of foods that do not harmonize, upon the same bill of fare.  The amount of time and strength available for the preparation of the meal must also receive consideration.  The problem would be easier of solution could one select her menu wholly from fresh material each time; but in most households the odds and ends and “left-over” foods must be utilized, and if possible compounded into dishes that will not have the savor of yesterday’s breakfast or dinner.

The making of a bill of fare offers opportunity for thought and study under all circumstances; but it is often particularly difficult for the housewife long accustomed to the use of foods of a different character, to make up a menu of hygienic dishes properly adapted to all requirements.  For such of our readers as need aid in this direction, we give in this chapter bills of fare for fifty-two weeks’ breakfasts and dinners.  Not that we presume to have arranged a model dietary which every one can adopt,—­individual preferences, resources, and various other conditions would preclude that,—­but we have endeavored to prepare a list of menus suitable for use should circumstances admit, and which we trust may be found helpfully suggestive of good, hygienic living.

We have given meats no place upon these bills of fare, as we wished particularly to illustrate how good, substantial menus of appetizing variety can be provided without their use; but such of our readers as desire this class of foods will have no difficulty in supplementing the bills we have arranged by adding such meats as accord with their tastes and purses, while our chapter on Meats will give them all needed information as to their preparation.