The opening of Preface
Time was when the foremost aim and ambition of the English housewife was to gain a full knowledge of her own duties and of the duties of her servants. In those days, bread was home-baked, butter home-made, beer home-brewed, gowns home-sewn, to a far greater extent than now.
With the advance of education, there is much reason to fear that the essentially domestic part of the training of our daughters is being more and more neglected. Yet what can be more important for the comfort and welfare of the household than an appreciation of their needs and an ability to furnish them. Accomplishments, all very good in their way, must, to the true housewife, be secondary to all that concerns the health, the feeding, the clothing, the housing of those under her care.