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 human action

A Treatise on Economics

Volume 1
Titles in the Liberty Fund Library of the Works of
Ludwig von Mises

The Anti-capitalistic Mentality

Between the Two World Wars: Monetary Disorder,
Interventionism, Socialism, and the Great Depression
Bureaucracy
Economic Freedom and Interventionism: An Anthology
of Articles and Essays
Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
Liberalism: The Classical Tradition
Nation, State, and Economy: Contributions to the Politics
and History of Our Time
Planning for Freedom: Let the Market System Work
The Political Economy of International Reform and Reconstruction
Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis
Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social
and Economic Evolution
The Theory of Money and Credit
The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method
To view this page please refer to the print edition of this book.
This page intentionally left blank.
Human Action
A Treatise on Economics

 ludwig von mises

Edited by Bettina Bien Greaves

Volume 1

liberty fund Indianapolis

This book is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., a foundation established
to encourage study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible
individuals.

The cuneiform inscription that serves as our logo and as the design motif
for our endpapers is the earliest-known written appearance of the word
“freedom” (amagi), or “liberty.” It is taken from a clay document written
about 2300 b.c. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.

Editorial Additions © 2007 Liberty Fund, Inc.

All Rights Reserved
First published in 1949 by Yale University Press with a revised edition in 1963. In
1966, Henry Regnery Company published the third revised edition in agreement
with Yale. The fourth revised edition (and the edition used for this setting) was
published in 1996 by The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. in coopera-
tion with Bettina Bien Greaves.
Mises Made Easier: A Glossary for Ludwig von Mises’ HUMAN ACTION © 1990
Bettina Bien Greaves and reprinted with permission.

Front cover photograph of Ludwig von Mises used by permission

of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama

Frontispiece courtesy of Bettina Bien Greaves

Printed in the United States of America

C 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
P 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Von Mises, Ludwig, 1881–1973
Human action: a treatise on economics/ Ludwig von Mises; edited by Bettina Bien Greaves.
p. cm.—(Liberty Fund library of the works of Ludwig von Mises)
Originally published: 4th rev. ed., Irvington-on-Hudson, N. Y.: Foundation for
Economic Education, c1996.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13: 978-0-86597-630-6 (hardcover: 4 volume set: alk. paper)
isbn-13: 978-0-86597-631-3 (pbk.: 4 volume set: alk. paper)
[etc.]
1. Economics 2. Commerce. I. Greaves, Bettina Bien. II. Title.
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editor’s note

This edition of Mises’s Human Action is reproduced from the Foundation for
Economic Education’s 4th edition which was a reprint of the 3rd 1966 Henry
Regnery edition. In this book Mises cited many foreign language works in
footnotes. Whenever feasible, if English-language translations are available,
the editor has referenced the pertinent pages in those English translations.
Also when the meaning of foreign words and phrases are not readily apparent
from the context, English translations of those foreign terms have been in-
serted, in brackets, immediately following.
For the benefit of scholars who have read, studied, and cited Mises’s Human
Action over many years, this Liberty Fund edition has been typeset, insofar as
possible, to preserve the pagination of the 3rd (1966) and 4th (1996) editions,
which were identical. As it was not always possible to keep the page divisions
exactly the same, a careful scrutiny will detect minor discrepancies on pages
206 –207, 234 –235, 373–374, 404 – 407, 468 – 478, 564 –565, and 689– 690.
Because the vocabulary Mises used in Human Action included many words
and phrases which will be unfamiliar to modern readers, this Liberty Fund
Edition reproduces Percy L. Greaves, Jr.’s Mises Made Easier: A Glossary to
Ludwig von Mises’ HUMAN ACTION, first published in 1974. This glossary
defines and explains technical terms and historical references and includes
translations of all foreign-language words and phrases in Human Action.
This page intentionally left blank.
foreword to the fourth edition

Mises’ contribution was very simple, yet at the same time extremely profound.
He pointed out that the whole economy is the result of what individuals do. In-
dividuals act, choose, cooperate, compete, and trade with one another. In this
way Mises explained how complex market phenomena develop. Mises did not
simply describe economic phenomena—prices, wages, interest rates, money,
monopoly and even the trade cycle—he explained them as the outcomes of
countless conscious, purposive actions, choices, and preferences of individuals,
each of whom was trying as best as he or she could under the circumstances to
attain various wants and ends and to avoid undesired consequences. Hence the
title Mises chose for his economic treatise, Human Action. Thus also, in Mises’
view, Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” was explainable on the basis of logic and
utilitarian principles as the outcome of the countless actions of individuals.
Sprinkled throughout Mises’ scholarly and erudite explanations of market
operations are many colorful descriptions of economic phenomena. For in-
stance, on the difference between economic and political power: “A ‘choco-
late king’ has no power over the consumers, his patrons. He provides them with
chocolate of the best quality and at the cheapest price. He does not rule the
consumers, he serves them. The consumers . . . are free to stop patronizing his
shops. He loses his ‘kingdom’ if the consumers prefer to spend their pennies
elsewhere.” (p. 300) On why people trade: “The inhabitants of the Swiss Jura
prefer to manufacture watches instead of growing wheat. Watchmaking is for
them the cheapest way to acquire wheat. On the other hand the growing of
wheat is the cheapest way for the Canadian farmer to acquire watches.” (p. 431)
For Mises a price is a ratio arrived at on the market by the competitive bids of
consumers for money on the one hand and some particular good or service on
the other. A government may issue decrees, but “A government can no more
determine prices than a goose can lay hen’s eggs.” (pp. 433–34)
In Mises’ view, the inequality of men was the beginning of peace-
ful interpersonal social cooperation and the source of all the advan-
tages it brings: “The liberal champions of equality under the law
were fully aware of the fact that men are born unequal and that it
is precisely their inequality that generates social cooperation and civ-
ilization. Equality under the law was in their opinion not designed
vi  foreword to the fourth edition

to correct the inexorable facts of the universe and to make natural inequality
disappear. It was, on the contrary, the device to secure for the whole of man-
kind the maximum of benefits it can derive from it. . . . Equality under the law
is in their eyes good because it best serves the interests of all. It leaves it to the
voters to decide who should hold public office and to the consumers to decide
who should direct production activities.” (p. 915)
Mises’ 1949 comments on Social Security and government debt read as if
they had been written yesterday: “Paul in the year 1940 saves by paying one
hundred dollars to the national social security institution. He receives in ex-
change a claim which is virtually an unconditional government IOU. If the
government spends the hundred dollars for current expenditures, no addi-
tional capital comes into existence, and no increase in the productivity of la-
bor results. The government’s IOU is a check drawn upon the future taxpayer.
In 1970 a certain Peter may have to fulfill the government’s promise although
he himself does not derive any benefit from the fact that Paul in 1940 saved one
hundred dollars. . . . The trumpery argument that the public debt is no bur-
den because ‘we owe it to ourselves’ is delusive. The Pauls of 1940 do not owe
it to themselves. It is the Peters of 1970 who owe it to the Pauls of 1940. . . . The
statesmen of 1940 solve their problems by shifting them to the statesmen of
1970. On that date the statesmen of 1940 will be either dead or elder statesmen
glorying in their wonderful achievement, social security.” (p. 921)
In the “Foreword to the Third Edition” of Human Action, Mises mentioned
the Italian and Spanish translations of this book. Since then it has been trans-
lated by Tao-Ping Hsia into Chinese (1976/77), by Raoul Audouin into French
(1985), by Donald Stewart, Jr., into Portuguese (1990), and by Toshio Murata
into Japanese (1991). Its German-language precursor, Nationalökonomie (1940)
has also been republished (1980).
The publishers of this new edition of Human Action have tried to correct the
typos that inevitably creep into almost any book, especially one of this size.
They have also included a completely new index, which they hope will help
make the ideas in this book more readily accessible to readers.
Bettina Bien Greaves
Irvington-on-Hudson, New York
February 1996
foreword to the third edition

It gives me great satisfaction to see this book, handsomely printed by a distin-

guished publishing house, appear in its third revised edition.
Two terminological remarks may be in order.
First, I employ the term “liberal” in the sense attached to it everywhere in the
nineteenth century and still today in the countries of continental Europe. This
usage is imperative because there is simply no other term available to signify the
great political and intellectual movement that substituted free enterprise and
the market economy for the precapitalistic methods of production; constitu-
tional representative government for the absolutism of kings or oligarchies; and
freedom of all individuals for slavery, serfdom, and other forms of bondage.
Secondly, in the last decades the meaning of the term “psychology” has been
more and more restricted to the field of experimental psychology, a discipline
that resorts to the research methods of the natural sciences. On the other hand,
it has become usual to dismiss those studies that previously had been called psy-
chological as “literary psychology” and as an unscientific way of reasoning.
Whenever reference is made to “psychology” in economic studies, one has in
mind precisely this literary psychology, and therefore it seems advisable to in-
troduce a special term for it. I suggested in my book Theory and History (New
Haven, 1957, pp. 264 –74) the term “thymology,” and I used this term also in my
recently published essay The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science (Prince-
ton, 1962). However, my suggestion was not meant to be retroactive and to alter
the use of the term “psychology” in books previously published, and so I con-
tinue in this new edition to use the term “psychology” in the same way I used it
in the first edition.
Two translations of the first edition of Human Action have come out: an Ital-
ian translation by Mr. Tullio Bagiotti, Professor at the Università Bocconi in
Milano, under the title L’Azione Umana, Trattato di economia, published by
the Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese in 1959; and a Spanish-language
translation by Mr. Joaquin Reig Albiol under the title La Acción Humana
(Tratado de Economia), published in two volumes by Fundación Ignacio Vil-
lalonga in Valencia (Spain) in 1960.
I feel indebted to many good friends for help and advice in the preparation
of this book.
viii  foreword to the third edition

First of all I want to remember two deceased scholars, Paul Mantoux and
William E. Rappard, who by giving me the opportunity of teaching at the fa-
mous Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, pro-
vided me with the time and the incentive to start work upon a long-projected
plan.
I want to express my thanks for very valuable and helpful suggestions to Mr.
Arthur Goddard, Mr. Percy Greaves, Doctor Henry Hazlitt, Professor Israel
M. Kirzner, Mr. Leonard E. Read, Mr. Joaquin Reig Albiol and Doctor
George Reisman.
But most of all I want to thank my wife for her steady encouragement and
help.
Ludwig von Mises
New York
March, 1966
contents
volume 1
Editor’s Note iii
Foreword to the Fourth Edition v
Foreword to the Third Edition vii

Introduction
1 Economics and Praxeology 1
2 The Epistemological Problem of a General Theory
of Human Action 4
3 Economic Theory and the Practice of Human Action 7
4 Résumé 10

part 1 Human Action 11

chapter 1 Acting Man 11

1 Purposeful Action and Animal Reaction 11
2 The Prerequisites of Human Action 13
On Happiness
On Instincts and Impulses
3 Human Action as an Ultimate Given 17
4 Rationality and Irrationality; Subjectivism and
Objectivity of Praxeological Research 19
5 Causality as a Requirement of Action 22
6 The Alter Ego 23
On the Serviceableness of Instincts
The Absolute End
Vegetative Man

chapter 2 The Epistemological Problems of the Sciences

of Human Action 30
1 Praxeology and History 30
2 The Formal and Aprioristic Character of Praxeology 32
The Alleged Logical Heterogeneity of Primitive Man
3 The A Priori and Reality 38
4 The Principle of Methodological Individualism 41
I and We
5 The Principle of Methodological Singularism 44
x  contents

6 The Individual and Changing Features

of Human Action 46
7 The Scope and the Specific Method of History 47
8 Conception and Understanding 51
Natural History and Human History
9 On Ideal Types 59
10 The Procedure of Economics 64
11 The Limitations on Praxeological Concepts 69

chapter 3 Economics and the Revolt Against Reason 72

1 The Revolt Against Reason 72
2 The Logical Aspect of Polylogism 75
3 The Praxeological Aspect of Polylogism 76
4 Racial Polylogism 84
5 Polylogism and Understanding 86
6 The Case for Reason 89

chapter 4 A First Analysis of the Category of Action 92

1 Ends and Means 92
2 The Scale of Value 94
3 The Scale of Needs 96
4 Action as an Exchange 97

chapter 5 Time 99
1 Time as a Praxeological Factor 99
2 Past, Present, and Future 100
3 The Economization of Time 101
4 The Temporal Relation Between Actions 102

chapter 6 Uncertainty 105

1 Uncertainty and Acting 105
2 The Meaning of Probability 106
3 Class Probability 107
4 Case Probability 110
5 Numerical Evaluation of Case Probability 113
6 Betting, Gambling, and Playing Games 115
7 Praxeological Prediction 117

chapter 7 Action Within the World 119

1 The Law of Marginal Utility 119
2 The Law of Returns 127
 contents  xi

3 Human Labor as a Means 131

Immediately Gratifying Labor and Mediately
Gratifying Labor
The Creative Genius
4 Production 140

part 2 Action Within the Framework of Society 143

chapter 8 Human Society 143

1 Human Cooperation 143
2 A Critique of the Holistic and Metaphysical View
of Society 145
Praxeology and Liberalism
Liberalism and Religion
3 The Division of Labor 157
4 The Ricardian Law of Association 159
Current Errors Concerning the Law of Association
5 The Effects of the Division of Labor 164
6 The Individual Within Society 165
The Fable of the Mystic Communion
7 The Great Society 169
8 The Instinct of Aggression and Destruction 170
Current Misinterpretations of Modern Natural
Science, Especially of Darwinism

chapter 9 The Role of Ideas 177

1 Human Reason 177
2 World View and Ideology 178
The Fight Against Error
3 Might 187
Traditionalism as an Ideology
4 Meliorism and the Idea of Progress 191

chapter 10 Exchange Within Society 194

1 Autistic Exchange and Interpersonal Exchange 194
2 Contractual Bonds and Hegemonic Bonds 195
3 Calculative Action 198

part 3 Economic Calculation 200

chapter 11 Valuation Without Calculation 200
1 The Gradation of the Means 200
xii  contents

2 The Barter-Fiction of the Elementary Theory

of Value and Prices 201
The Theory of Value and Socialism
3 The Problem of Economic Calculation 206
4 Economic Calculation and the Market 209

chapter 12 The Sphere of Economic Calculation 212

1 The Character of Monetary Entries 212
2 The Limits of Economic Calculation 214
3 The Changeability of Prices 217
4 Stabilization 219
5 The Root of the Stabilization Idea 223

chapter 13 Monetary Calculation as a Tool of Action 229

1 Monetary Calculation as a Method of Thinking 229
2 Economic Calculation and the Science
of Human Action 231

volume 2
part 4 Catallactics or Economics of the
Market Society 232

chapter 14 The Scope and Method of Catallactics 232

1 The Delimitation of Catallactic Problems 232
The Denial of Economics
2 The Method of Imaginary Constructions 236
3 The Pure Market Economy 237
The Maximization of Profits
4 The Autistic Economy 243
5 The State of Rest and the Evenly Rotating Economy 244
6 The Stationary Economy 250
7 The Integration of Catallactic Functions 251
The Entrepreneurial Function in the
Stationary Economy

chapter 15 The Market 257

1 The Characteristics of the Market Economy 257
2 Capital Goods and Capital 259
3 Capitalism 264
4 The Sovereignty of the Consumers 269
The Metaphorical Employment of the
Terminology of Political Rule
 contents  xiii

5 Competition 273
6 Freedom 279
7 Inequality of Wealth and Income 287
8 Entrepreneurial Profit and Loss 289
9 Entrepreneurial Profits and Losses in a
Progressing Economy 294
The Moral Condemnation of Profit
Some Observations on the Underconsumption
Bogey and on the Purchasing Power Argument
10 Promoters, Managers, Technicians, and Bureaucrats 303
11 The Selective Process 311
12 The Individual and the Market 315
13 Business Propaganda 320
14 The “Volkswirtschaft” 323

chapter16 Prices 327

1 The Pricing Process 327
2 Valuation and Appraisement 331
3 The Prices of the Goods of Higher Orders 333
A Limitation on the Pricing of Factors of Production
4 Cost Accounting 339
5 Logical Catallactics Versus Mathematical Catallactics 350
6 Monopoly Prices 357
The Mathematical Treatment of the
Theory of Monopoly Prices
7 Good Will 379
8 Monopoly of Demand 383
9 Consumption as Affected by Monopoly Prices 384
10 Price Discrimination on the Part of the Seller 388
11 Price Discrimination on the Part of the Buyer 391
12 The Connexity of Prices 391
13 Prices and Income 393
14 Prices and Production 394
15 The Chimera of Nonmarket Prices 395

chapter 17 Indirect Exchange 398

1 Media of Exchange and Money 398
2 Observations on Some Widespread Errors 398
3 Demand for Money and Supply of Money 401
The Epistemological Import of Carl Menger’s
Theory of the Origin of Money
4 The Determination of the Purchasing Power of Money 408
xiv  contents

5 The Problem of Hume and Mill and the Driving

Force of Money 416
6 Cash-Induced and Goods-Induced Changes
in Purchasing Power 419
Inflation and Deflation; Inflationism
and Deflationism
7 Monetary Calculation and Changes
in Purchasing Power 424
8 The Anticipation of Expected Changes
in Purchasing Power 426
9 The Specific Value of Money 428
10 The Import of the Money Relation 430
11 The Money-Substitutes 432
12 The Limitation on the Issuance of Fiduciary Media 434
Observations on the Discussions Concerning
Free Banking
13 The Size and Composition of Cash Holdings 448
14 Balances of Payments 450
15 Interlocal Exchange Rates 452
16 Interest Rates and the Money Relation 458
17 Secondary Media of Exchange 462
18 The Inflationist View of History 466
19 The Gold Standard 471
International Monetary Cooperation

chapter 18 Action in the Passing of Time 479

1 Perspective in the Valuation of Time Periods 479
2 Time Preference as an Essential Requisite of Action 483
Observations on the Evolution of the
Time-Preference Theory
3 Capital Goods 490
4 Period of Production, Waiting Time, and Period of
Provision 493
Prolongation of the Period of Provision Beyond
the Expected Duration of the Actor’s Life
Some Applications of the Time-Preference Theory
5 The Convertibility of Capital Goods 503
6 The Influence of the Past Upon Action 505
7 Accumulation, Maintenance and Consumption of Capital 514
8 The Mobility of the Investor 517
9 Money and Capital; Saving and Investment 520
 contents  xv

chapter 19 Interest 524

1 The Phenomenon of Interest 524
2 Originary Interest 526
3 The Height of Interest Rates 532
4 Originary Interest in the Changing
Economy 534
5 The Computation of Interest 536

chapter 20 Interest, Credit Expansion, and the

Trade Cycle 538
1 The Problems 538
2 The Entrepreneurial Component in the Gross
Market Rate of Interest 539
3 The Price Premium as a Component of the
Gross Market Rate of Interest 541
4 The Loan Market 545
5 The Effects of Changes in the Money Relation
Upon Originary Interest 548
6 The Gross Market Rate of Interest as Affected by
Inflation and Credit Expansion 550
The Alleged Absence of Depressions Under
Totalitarian Management
7 The Gross Market Rate of Interest as Affected by
Deflation and Credit Contraction 566
The Difference Between Credit Expansion and
Simple Inflation
8 The Monetary or Circulation Credit Theory of the
Trade Cycle 571
9 The Market Economy as Affected by the Recurrence
of the Trade Cycle 575
The Role Played by Unemployed Factors of
Production in the First Stages of a Boom
The Fallacies of the Nonmonetary Explanations
of the Trade Cycle

chapter 21 Work and Wages 587

1 Introversive Labor and Extroversive Labor 587
2 Joy and Tedium of Labor 588
3 Wages 592
4 Catallactic Unemployment 598
5 Gross Wage Rates and Net Wage Rates 600
xvi  contents

6 Wages and Subsistence 602

A Comparison Between the Historical Explanation
of Wage Rates and the Regression Theorem
7 The Supply of Labor as Affected by the Disutility
of Labor 611
Remarks About the Popular Interpretation
of the “Industrial Revolution”
8 Wage Rates as Affected by the Vicissitudes
of the Market 624
9 The Labor Market 625
The Work of Animals and of Slaves

chapter 22 The Nonhuman Original Factors of Production 635

1 General Observations Concerning the
Theory of Rent 635
2 The Time Factor in Land Utilization 637
3 The Submarginal Land 640
4 The Land as Standing Room 642
5 The Prices of Land 643
The Myth of the Soil

chapter 23 The Data of the Market 646

1 The Theory and the Data 646
2 The Role of Power 647
3 The Historical Role of War and Conquest 649
4 Real Man as a Datum 651
5 The Period of Adjustment 652
6 The Limits of Property Rights and the Problems of
External Costs and External Economies 654
The External Economies of Intellectual
Creation
Privileges and Quasi-privileges

chapter 24 Harmony and Conflict of Interests 664

1 The Ultimate Source of Profit and Loss
on the Market 664
2 The Limitation of Offspring 667
3 The Harmony of the “Rightly Understood” Interests 673
4 Private Property 682
5 The Conflicts of Our Age 684
Other documents randomly have
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The English
Housekeeper: Or, Manual of Domestic
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH

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THE LARDER.
 THE

ENGLISH HOUSEKEEPER:
OR,

MANUAL OF DOMESTIC MANAGEMENT:

CONTAINING

ADVICE ON THE CONDUCT OF HOUSEHOLD AFFAIRS, AND

Practical Instructions

CONCERNING

THE STORE-ROOM, THE KITCHEN,

THE PANTRY, THE CELLAR,

THE LARDER, THE DAIRY.

THE WHOLE BEING INTENDED

FOR THE USE OF YOUNG LADIES WHO UNDERTAKE THE

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(IMPROVED BY THE INTRODUCTION OF MANY NEW RECEIPTS.)

BY ANNE COBBETT.
 LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY A. COBBETT, 137, STRAND.

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[Price Six Shillings.]

LONDON:
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INTRODUCTION.

"She looketh well to the ways of her Household, and eateth not
the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed:
her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have
done virtuously, but thou excellest them all."—Proverbs, Chap.
xxxi., vs. 27, 28, & 29.

I have taken so much pains to make the following work deserving of

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undervalue my own performance, by anticipating doubts of its utility,
or by expressing any fear lest my friends should be disappointed
when they look into it. Every publication of this description is
necessarily calculated to be of some essential service; for it must not
only be practical in its descriptions and directions, but must relate to
matters touching the daily and hourly wants of all mankind; and it
will, of course, be approved according as it may happen to meet
those wants.
As a mere Cookery-book, mine must submit to be placed in a lower
rank than some others, because I do not profess to bring to light
discoveries in the culinary art, neither do I design to favour
epicurism. I have no pretension beyond that of advising young ladies
who are their own housekeepers; and the receipts which will be
found in my selection, are such as appeared to me suitable to any
family of moderate style in living, and such as may be easily
comprehended and put in practice. These have been carefully
revised and amended in the present edition, and some others added.

While I am offering advice with respect to the manner of conducting

domestic affairs, I cannot refrain from expressing my regret that so
large a proportion of the young ladies of England are sadly deficient
in that information, and in those practices of economy which are the
most essentially necessary to their welfare as persons of influence
and authority in a house. I am by no means singular in lamenting
that the advantages of a knowledge of housekeeping seem to be so
entirely lost sight of by those who have the responsibility of bringing
up either their own or other people's daughters; and I find it
frequently the subject of remark that the ladies of the present day
have become incapable of being so skilful in the discharge of their
domestic duties as the ladies of a former period were, in proportion
as they have become more cultivated and more accomplished. But is
it so? Are there now a greater proportion of women whose minds are
really cultivated than there were formerly? Is there not rather a
greater pretence of learning with less of it in reality? It is erroneous
to suppose that persons of real learning look upon the minor duties
of life with contempt, because of their learning; for, though learning
does not, perhaps, give sense, it surely does not destroy it, and
there is not only a want of sense, but a positive folly, in that
affectation of refinement, and that assumption of superiority, which
has led to the result now complained of. But the system of education
which has prevailed of late years is certainly in fault; a system which
assigns the same species of learning, indiscriminately, to young
persons of every rank and degree, without distinction even as to
ability. Such a method of bringing up has unavoidably been
productive of very injurious effects; for, while it withdraws the
daughters of farmers and tradespeople, and others, during a great
part of their youth, from the practice of those homely arts which
belong to their stations, it leaves them, in nine cases out of ten,
without anything more than the mere fancy that they possess
acquirements of a higher order.

The desire which many persons feel to give their children a better
education than has been bestowed upon themselves is laudable,
because it proceeds from sincere affection: but how often is the
success equal to the motive which actuates? How often is the
manner of attempting at all calculated for attaining the object so
earnestly sought? An ambition to promote the welfare of children
reconciles parents to part with them at that tender age when they
ought to command more constant care than they generally need at a
more advanced time of life; and this ambition is so strong that it will
even cause little girls to be consigned to the blighting atmosphere of
a crowded schoolroom, there to bewail the loss of the warm hearth,
or the airy room of their own homes, and all the comforts which
depend upon a mother's solicitude. With a view to their being
educated, that is to say, fitted for the world, and for the discharge of
their respective duties in it, girls are sent to school, and are there
condemned to a dull course of lessons, before their minds have
sufficient strength to imbibe any kind of learning that requires
mental labour, and before their understandings are equal to any
greater exertion than that of perceiving the difference between a
roasted apple and a sugar-plum.

A knowledge of housekeeping is not difficult to attain. It needs no

natural superiority of talent, and no painful application. It is rather a
habit than a science, and, like the neatness so characteristic of
English women, this knowledge rarely comes to perfection at all,
unless it be partly formed in early life, and by means of our very
earliest associations. Little girls are always prone to imitate the ways
of older persons, particularly in housekeeping matters. They very
soon begin to find amusement in learning to make preserves, pastry,
and such things. Those children, therefore, who are brought up at
home, and have the daily and hourly practice of domestic duties
before their eyes, will naturally fall into habits of usefulness, and
acquire, by degrees and imperceptibly, a knowledge of what belongs
to home, which should constitute the elementary education of every
woman who is not born to rank and to luxury. But the unhappy little
creatures who drag through seven or more years of continuous
monotony within the walls of a school, their minds taking little or no
part in the tasks which their memories are racked upon, have but
little chance of learning any thing which will benefit their after lives;
for, those whose mothers knead the bread, churn the butter, and
help to cook the dinner, have not the benefit of that sort of society
that would teach them to apply their learning, that would call forth
their acquirements, or that would be able to appreciate those
acquirements when displayed. During the period which these
children spend at school, their mother continues her old-fashioned
occupations, and, as time passes on, she looks forward, perhaps,
with cheering anticipations to the help which her daughters are to
afford her. But alas! how often do these daughters return from
school with false notions of the lives they are to lead, and with
mistaken ideas of their own consequence, such as lead them to
despise the humble occupations of their home, although their
"education" may not have given them one single idea to justify any
pretension of the kind. It is generally acknowledged, that girls
educated at schools are seldom far advanced in learning. Where
history and geography, and other sciences, are learnt by rote, "a
page of Greece on Monday," a "page of Rome on Tuesday," a "page
of Universal Biography on Wednesday," with occasional readings of
the middle ages, of modern times, and application being made to
maps, globes, charts, &c., to fill up the time which is not devoted to
the fine arts (for it all goes on at once), the stock of real solid
information which is gained by the end of the year, will be very
scanty, or will probably have resolved itself into such a confused
mass of imperfect information that all practical benefit may be
despaired of. No wonder, if, after having undergone a course like
this, a young girl is often found to have gained less from books than
others have gained from vulgar report, and be puzzled to say
whether it was Scipio or Washington who was the first President of
the United States of America. They learn lessons, but they do not
reason or think about what they are getting by heart; and many
girls, whose education has cost a large sum of money, are unable to
answer a question of name, place, or date, in their geography or
history, without first running over a certain portion of one whole
lesson, the sound of which has left a deeper impression on the ear,
than its sense has left on the understanding. Just as, when wanting
to ascertain the number of days in a particular month, we repeat the
words, "Thirty days hath September," &c., thus recalling by means of
the jingle of words, what of itself had slipped our memories.

Girls so educated are very much to be commiserated. They live,

through that part of their lives in which the mind is most open to
receive impressions, without any opportunity for exercising their
powers of observation, till, at last, those powers fall into a state of
inertness; and their education is finished without their having gained
the least knowledge of what the world really is, or of the part which
they are to be called upon to act in it. Having had no intimate
association with persons really well informed, it is no matter of
surprise, if they become conceited of their supposed attainments, or
if they remain in ignorance of the fact, that a little music, a little
drawing, and a very little French and Italian, are not sufficient to
make an accomplished woman, and that merely going the round of
primers will not, of itself, constitute what is looked for in a "good
education." Nor is it, indeed, to be wondered at, if the home, which
has been so cherished in recollection from one holiday time to
another, fail to realise all the anticipations of pleasure and of
happiness which the thought of it has excited. Its simple occupations
are not of a kind to make them, as novelties, attractive to one who is
only a fine lady; the want of capacity to fill domestic duties will, of
course, render them rather disagreeable than otherwise; and it is but
natural that young women who, during all the early part of their
lives, have been unaccustomed to think of household cares, should
entertain some degree of aversion to them, and feel dissatisfied
when called upon to take a part in them. Many a father has repented
that he did not rather lay up for his daughter, the money which has
been expended to no better purpose than to cause her to repine at
the condition in life in which he must leave her. And many a mother's
pride, in the fancied superiority of her daughter, has been saddened
by the recollection, not only that her daughter was incapable of
helping her, but that the time must come when that incompetent
daughter would be left to take care of herself.

My readers may imagine that I forget my proper theme: they may

wish me to remember that this book professes only to aid those
young ladies who are uninformed on this subject, how to keep
house, and that I am diverging from that subject, and raising
objections to a very common way of bringing up children. But when
it is generally acknowledged that there is, in the ladies of the present
day, a great want of skill as regards the affairs of their household, an
ignorance, in fact, of some of their first duties, it cannot be
impertinent for me to inquire, whether this want of skill, and this
ignorance, be not properly ascribable to a defective, or even to a
mischievous, course of education. I certainly do think that habits of
usefulness, and the cultivation of talents, may be combined, but then
the acquiring of the useful, and the cultivating of the finer
accomplishments must proceed hand in hand. There are, doubtless,
many who do not think it beneath them to be able to make a
pudding, merely because they can execute a difficult piece of music,
or sing with good taste; who do not regard these as things
absolutely incongruous; and who do not consider, when they receive
applause for excelling in fashionable powers to charm, that the
offering carries with it an excuse for their being inefficient and
helpless mistresses of families. There are, however, not a few, who
do think that qualifications of a refined nature render it unbecoming
in their possessors to give that personal superintendence to the
affairs of the kitchen, of the store-room, and of all the other
branches of household arrangement, which is so necessary, that, for
the want of it, moderate fortunes often prove inadequate to the
support of families in the middle rank. Young persons cannot be
expected to entertain a proper estimation of the value of useful
habits, as compared with the value of ornamental acquirements,
unless they have grown up in the exercise of those habits. The idea
that capability in the domestic, is incompatible with taste in the
elegant accomplishments, is so deeply rooted in the minds of most
persons who aspire to be fashionable, that I despair of the power to
do much towards eradicating the fatal error. And yet, I would fain
represent to parents, the wrong which is done to children by
suffering this idea to plant itself in their minds; for it not only
reduces young women to a standard of comparatively little
consequence, by making them helpless in all the ordinary business of
life, but it produces incidentally, a variety of injurious effects on the
health, on the spirits, and even on the temper. It is proverbial, that
the largest portion of happiness belongs not to the higher ranks of
society; and the reason is, not that the rich and luxurious are, as a
matter of course, unworthy and consequently unhappy; but that
their minds are not diverted by necessary cares, that their
amusements are easily obtained, and that the enjoyment of them is
never interrupted by their having duties to perform. Pleasures fail to
excite and interest the mind, unless they come in the way of
relaxation. Therefore it is, that even in youth, something by way of
employment is necessary to keep gaiety from subsiding into dulness;
and in mature life nothing is more salutary than occupation. To have
something to do, to be obliged to be doing, withdraws the mind from
the contemplation of fancied sorrows, and prevents its being
subdued by the recurrence of unavailing regrets. Women who have
been accustomed, in their youth, to be industriously engaged and to
contribute to the daily happiness of others, are sure to enjoy the
greatest share of tranquillity and satisfaction in a review of days
gone by, to show the most courage in adversity, the most patience in
sickness, and to be the most cheerful and resigned under the
infirmities of age; and those parents, therefore, who instil into the
minds of their daughters the principle of making themselves useful,
will confer upon them one of the greatest of blessings.

Let it not be supposed, however, that by useful, I mean that a

woman should be a mere household drudge, that all her ideas
should be confined within the limits of her domestic offices, or that
her guests as well as her family, should be entertained by nothing
better than details of the household. Ladies who have houses and
servants to look after, should be capable of superintending the whole
in a manner so systematic, as that they may have a due portion of
their time, and of their thoughts, to give to other, and, if they deem
them such, higher matters. I by no means recommend, as patterns,
the fussy people, who are always busy and have never done, who let
you know every thing that they have to do, and who, sometimes, do
very little after all. Neither is it advisable to imitate, too closely, that
class of housewives who are distinguished by the phrase—"very
particular:" for even the virtue of neatness, when incessantly
exercised, or manifested too much in matters of little moment,
becomes an intruder upon comfort, and, consequently, offensive.
What I recommend is, that quiet and orderly method of conducting
the business of a house, which tends rather to conceal than to make
an appearance of much to do, which puts all that part of the family,
who are not immediately engaged in it, as little as possible out of the
way, and which may enable strangers to remain under the roof
without being constantly reminded of the trouble they occasion.
Every woman who presides over a home, and who wishes to
preserve its attraction, should bear in mind the many minute cares
which all contribute to give to that home, not only the semblance,
but the substance of enjoyment; and I earnestly impress upon my
youthful readers the important fact, that, as far as mere fortune is
concerned, those often prove to be the most poor in reality, who
may have been thought to be the most rich. Competence and ease
may be changed for narrowed circumstances, and a struggle may
ensue, to stem a torrent of difficulties which follow in succession,
and threaten to destroy the home which has been hitherto
considered secure. Then she who has passed her life in total
listlessness, possessing no acquirements but of a showy kind, and
ignorant of what is wanted to preserve the foundation of a family's
happiness; then such a woman will prove as unfitted to lighten
sorrow, as she has been careless to avert it: for herself, she can but
quail as difficulties assail her; for others, she can only seek for
protection where, if she were capable, she might be of assistance;
and, instead of aiding to alleviate distress, she will become the main
cause of rendering the common burden intolerable.

How often do we see families stricken to the very dust, by the first,
and perhaps only a slight blow, of misfortune; and this, merely for
the want of a little of that practical knowledge, and that experience,
which would have enabled them to husband their diminished means
so that they might still supply sufficient to meet all real wants, and
still procure every material comfort. From a want of this experience,
some of the very best intentioned persons will so misapply the
resources left to them, at one time laying out money where they
ought to refrain altogether, and at another parting with more than
the occasion requires, that, by degrees, those resources dwindle
away to nothing before they seem to be aware of the natural
consequences, and not only poverty, but destitution and misery are
let into an abode where comparative ease and contentment might
still have remained. The great art of economy in domestic life, is
comprised in the two very homely phrases, "to turn every thing to
account," and "to make the most of what you have." But their
meaning is often perverted, and the habit of turning every thing to
an account, and of making the most of every thing, is ascribed to
those who are actuated, not by a laudable desire to produce as
much comfort as their circumstances will admit, but by an inclination
to indulge in a strong propensity to stinginess. But of this class of
persons I am far from being the advocate; between extravagance
and parsimony the widest possible interval exists; and that economy,
that management and application of means, which I deem perfectly
consistent with the most rigid virtue and the most generous impulse,
is of too admirable a character to partake either of the spendthrift's
criminality or of the miser's meanness.

If my censures upon the present system of educating young ladies

should appear to be presumptuous, I greatly fear that any
disapproval of that which is now so universally adopted with regard
to the poor will be still more unpopular; but it does appear to me
that there, there exists a mistake also, which, perhaps, in its
consequences, will prove still more fatal. It appears to me that
something better might be done, more advantageous to both rich
and poor, by educating the latter to be useful members of society;
and I think that ladies who live in the country may have ample
opportunities of training up good servants, by attending to the
education of poor neighbours of their own sex. By education, I do
not mean that kind of teaching which merely qualifies them for
reading letters and words. Small literary accomplishments,
accompanied by idle habits, are already but too common, though the
fact is more generally known than acknowledged. Nor do I mean
that sort of education which creates expectations of gaining a
livelihood by any other means than those of honest industry; or
which tends to raise the ideas of persons who are born to work
above the duties which fortune has assigned to them. I mean such
an education as shall better their condition, by making them better
servants. In large establishments, where there are old and
experienced persons in service, it is very much the custom to have
younger ones as helpers, and thus the latter have the benefit of
learning all the duties of the household; but these establishments
are comparatively few in number. The fashion of the day is opposed
to my opinion, and the same ladies who now condescend to teach
poor children to read and write, because it is the fashion to do so,
would, in many cases, think it beneath them to teach a little girl to
make a pudding. It would, in a work of this nature, be a hopeless
and presumptuous attempt, to argue against the all-powerful
influence of fashion, against which the keenest shafts of invective
and ridicule, and in short every weapon of satire, have been so often
aimed in vain; but, all are not under the dominion of so senseless
and so capricious a tyranny, and I have to regret my inability to set
before my readers the benefits which mistresses of families would
confer and receive, from bringing up young country girls to be good
servants. There might always, in a country-house, be one or more
young girls, according to the size of the establishment; to be placed
under older servants, or be instructed by the mistress herself, in all
household occupations, from the hardest work and most simple
offices, to the more delicate arts of housekeeping, including needle-
work. This practice would not only insure more good servants than
there now are; but, young girls so trained would, by the force of
hourly tuition and good example, imbibe a right sense of duty, and
acquire good habits, before they could have had time to become
vicious or unmanageable.

When ladies take the trouble to teach the poor to read and write,
they mean well, no doubt, and think they are doing the best they
can for their pupils. But teaching industry is more to the purpose; for
when learning has been found insufficient to preserve the morals of
princes, nobles, and gentry, how can it be supposed that it will
preserve those of their dependents? The supposition is, in fact,
injurious to the cause of true learning, since the system founded
upon it has been attended by no moral improvement. Our well-being
is best secured by an early habit of earning our bread by honest
labour; and

"Not to know at large of things remote

From use, obscure, and subtle, but to know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime wisdom; what is more, is fume.
Or emptiness, or fond impertinence,
And renders us in things that most concern,
Unpractis'd, unprepar'd, and still to seek."
A country girl, the daughter of a labourer, would, by making herself
in some way practically useful to society, and gaining a respectable
livelihood, be more profitably employed than in going through that
long course of literary exercise which has, of late, been so generally
bestowed on the children of poor people, but which, I fear, has not
generally imparted to them much of what Milton styles "the prime
wisdom." It should also be considered, that the literary education of
the poor, such as it is, cannot be much more than half completed at
the age when the children cease to receive lessons from their
charitable instructors. They are taught to read, to write a little, and
perhaps something of the elements of arithmetic. The reading,
however, is the principal attainment; and in this, they generally
become well enough schooled before they are eleven, or, at most,
twelve years of age. But alas! have they at that age, or at the age of
thirteen or fourteen, been taught all that is necessary for girls so
young to learn, with regard to the choice of books? With the use of
letters, indeed, as the mere components of words, they have been
made acquainted. But why have they been taught to read at all,
unless there be some profit to be derived from their reading; and
how can any profit be looked for from that reading, unless there be
the same kind of pains taken to point out the proper objects of study
as there have been to teach the little scholars to spell? Surely that
advice which is required by all young persons in the pursuit of book-
learning, is at least as necessary to those who can do no more than
just read their own native language, as it is to those who are
brought up in a superior way. The education of youth, among the
higher and middle classes, does not terminate, or, at least, it never
should, immediately on their leaving school. At that period, a fresh
series of anxieties occur to the parent or the guardian, who is quite
as sedulous as before, to finish that which has been, in fact, only
begun at school. If this be not the case, how is it, that though the
son may have been eight or ten years at the best schools, the father,
after the schooling is ended, finds it necessary to consult the most
discreet and experienced advisers, concerning the right guidance of
his child in the course of his future studies? The attention paid to the
studies of young ladies, after they come from school, is, to be sure,
not precisely the same as that which parents think requisite for their
sons. But, while the daughter has generally the advantage of being
with her mother, or with some female relative much older than
herself; and while the success in life of our sex does not so
frequently depend upon literary acquirements, and the proper
employment of them; yet under such circumstances, favourable as
they are, we all know that there is still much wanting, both in the
way of counsel and attractive example, from the parent or guardian,
to render the learning which a young girl has acquired at school, of
substantial service to her in after years. If the daughters of the rich
require to be taught, not merely to read, but, also, what to read,
why should not this be the case with the daughters of the poor? in
whose fate, it is too often proved, that "a little learning is a
dangerous thing," owing to the want of that discretion which is
necessary to prevent the little learning becoming worthless, and
even mischievous, to its possessor.

In the way of practical education, there are many things of

importance to the poor, which ought to be taught them in early
youth. At the age of fifteen or sixteen, a girl should already have
learned many of the duties of a servant; for if her education up to
that age have been neglected, she must necessarily, for the next
three or four years of her life, be comparatively useless and little
worthy of trust. The poor do not, as some may suppose, inhale with
the air they breathe any of that knowledge which is necessary to
make them useful in the houses of their parents or their employers.
To learn cookery, in its various branches; making bread; milking,
butter-making, and all the many things that belong to a dairy;
household offices innumerable; besides the nice art of getting up
fine linen, and plain work with the needle; not only requires
considerable time, but, also, unless the learner be uncommonly quick
and willing, great attention on the part of the person who
undertakes to teach them. It is lamentable to see how deficient
many female servants are in some things, the knowledge of which
ought to be thought indispensable. Some are so ignorant of plain
needle-work as to be incapable of making themselves a gown; and
this, too, where they happen to be what the country-people call
"scholars," from their ability to read a little, and to make an awkward
use of the pen. A maid-servant who can assist her mistress in plain
needle-work, is a really valuable person. Strange as it may seem,
however, there are but few common servants who can do so,
notwithstanding that superiority in learning by which the present
generation of the labouring people are said to be distinguished from
their predecessors.

With young servants, nothing has a better effect than

encouragement. If they are, by nature, only good tempered, and
blest with as much right principle as those who have not been
spoiled generally possess, whatever you say or do in the way of
encouraging them, can hardly fail to produce some good, though it
may not always accomplish everything that you would desire. A
cheerful tone in giving directions, a manner of address which
conveys the idea of confidence in the willingness, as well as the
ability, of the person directed, has great influence upon the minds of
all young persons whose tempers and inclinations have not been
warped by ill-usage, or soured by disappointment. Very young
servants frequently take pride in their work, though of the most
laborious kind, and many a young girl might be proud to improve in
the more refined departments of housewifery, and would regard a
little congratulation upon the lightness of her pastry, or the
excellence of her cakes, as worth ten times all the thought and care
which she had bestowed upon them. There is no mistress who does
not acknowledge the importance of a servant who can assist in
preserving, pickling, wine-making, and other things of this
description, which demand both skill and labour, and which must,
where there is no one but the mistress herself sufficiently acquainted
with them to be trusted, take up much of her time and give her
considerable trouble.
To teach poor children to become useful servants, may, perhaps, be
thought a serious task; but it surely cannot be said that this sort of
instruction is at all more difficult than that which is necessary to give
them even a tolerable proficiency in the lowest branches of
literature. The learning here recommended, seems naturally more
inviting, as well as more needful, than that which is taught in the
ordinary course of school education; and it possesses this
advantage, that while its benefits are equally lasting, they are
immediately perceptible. It is sometimes said that the poor are
ungrateful, and that after all the pains and trouble which may have
been taken in making them good servants, it often happens, that
instead of testifying a proper sense of the obligation, they become
restless, and desirous of leaving those who have had all the trouble
of qualifying them for better places and higher wages. Servants
cannot be prevented from bettering themselves, as they call it, but
that constant changing of place which operates as one of the worst
examples to young women who are at service, would become less
frequent if their employments were occasionally varied by relaxation
and amusement, and their services now and then rewarded by small
presents. The influence of early habits is so universally felt and
acknowledged, that it seems almost superfluous to ask why an early
and industrious education of the poor, and the teaching of the youth
of both sexes to look upon prosperity and right endeavour as
inseparable, should not produce a taste, the reverse of that which
leads to a discontented and unsettled existence.

It is equally the interest of the rich and of the poor, that the youthful
inhabitants of the mansion and those of the cottage, should grow up
with sentiments of mutual good will. If the poor are indebted to their
opulent neighbours for the assistance which makes a hard lot
tolerable, there exists a reciprocal obligation on the part of the rich,
since they could not obtain the comforts and the luxuries which they
enjoy, without the aid of those who are less fortunate than
themselves. But there is another and superior motive, which ought
to narrow the distance between the poor and the rich: the lady of
the mansion, when she meets her washerwoman in the village
church, must know that, in that place, she and the hard-working
woman are equals. The lady of the mansion, when she beholds the
ravages which but a few years of toil have wrought in the once
blooming and healthful country girl, is astonished, perhaps, that her
own looks and health have not undergone a similar change; but, she
forgets that the pitiable creature before her has been exposed to the
damp floors and steams of a wash-house, to the chill of a cold
drying-ground, and the oppressive heat of an ironing stove, in order
to earn her miserable portion of the necessaries of life. No wonder
that her beauty has vanished; that her countenance betrays the
marks of premature age, and that her air of cheerfulness is
exchanged for that of a saddened resignation. But the lady of the
mansion should not, in the confidence of her own happier fate, lose
sight of the fact, that this poor and destitute creature is a woman as
well as herself; that her poor inferior is liable to all those delicacies
and weaknesses of constitution of which she herself is sensible; and
that, in the eyes of their Maker, the peeress and the washerwoman
hold equal rank.

The ingratitude of the poor is often made a pretext for neglecting to

relieve their wants. But are not their superiors ungrateful? Is "the
ingratitude of the world," of which philosophers of the earliest ages
have said so much, confined to the lowly and unrefined? By no
means. High birth and refinement in breeding do not, alone, ensure
feelings of honour and of kindness to the heart, any more than they
ensure common sense and sound judgment to the head; for these
qualities seem to be in the very nature of some, while it passes the
power of all art to implant them in others. It is for those who have
known what adversity is to say whether they have not met with
instances of devoted attachment, of generosity, and of every other
good feeling, on the part of servants, at the very time when they
have been depressed by the heart-sick sensation caused by the
desertion of friends. Those have been unfortunate in their
experience of human nature, who cannot bear testimony to the
admirable conduct of servants in fulfilling that wearisome, and often
most trying, but at the same time most imperative of all earthly
duties, attendance upon a sick bed. Perhaps it has not occurred to
most others, as it has to me, to witness such proofs of virtue in poor
people. Among the truly charitable there are, no doubt, many in
whom disgust has been excited by ingratitude; but has it been
excited by the hard-working and the half-starving only? It is but a
very limited acquaintance with this life, which can justify the
unselfish and noble nature in denouncing the poor, for being
ungrateful. Be this, however, as it may, one thing is certain, that no
probability of disappointment, no apprehensions of an ungrateful
return, ought to have any influence with the mind of a Christian, and
that such obstacles were never yet a hinderance to any man or
woman whose desire was to do good.

TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S .

PAGE
Introduction iii

CHAPTER I.

General observations
relating to
Housekeeping, with
remarks on the fitting up
of a House, and
conducting its affairs. On
the choice and
management of
Servants. 1
 CHAPTER II.

The Store Room; the mode

of fitting up, and the
uses of it 14

CHAPTER III.

The Pantry; the uses of it,

with Receipts for
Cleaning Plate and
Furniture. 18

CHAPTER IV.

The Larder; with Directions

for Keeping and Salting
Meat. Seasons for Meat,
Poultry, Game, Fish and
Vegetables 23

CHAPTER V.

The Kitchen, with

observations upon the
fitting it up 35

CHAPTER VI.

Directions for Jointing,

Trussing and Carving,
with plates of Animals
and various Joints 44

CHAPTER VII.
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