Method, which is the soul of business, is also of essential
importance in the home. Work can only be got through by method.
Muddle flies before it, and hugger-mugger becomes a thing unknown.
Method demands punctuality, another eminently business quality.
The unpunctual woman, like the unpunctual man, occasions dislike,
because she consumes and wastes time, and provokes the reflection
that we are not of sufficient importance to make her more prompt.
To the business man, time is money; but to the business woman,
method is more--it is peace, comfort, and domestic prosperity.
Prudence is another important business quality in women, as in
men. Prudence is practical wisdom, and comes of the cultivated
judgment. It has reference in all things to fitness, to
propriety; judging wisely of the right thing to be done, and
the right way of doing it. It calculates the means, order,
time, and method of doing. Prudence learns from experience,
quickened by knowledge.
For these, amongst other reasons, habits of business are necessary
to be cultivated by all women, in order to their being efficient
helpers in the world's daily life and work. Furthermore, to
direct the power of the home aright, women, as the nurses,
trainers, and educators of children, need all the help and
strength that mental culture can give them.
Mere instinctive love is not sufficient. Instinct, which
preserves the lower creatures, needs no training; but human
intelligence, which is in constant request in a family, needs to
be educated.
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