t to
every person now in the United States, and the sum total of wasted time
to a single generation, would be 25,649,098 years--equal to the average
duration of the lives of 854,970 persons. The value of this time, as a
commodity in the market, at a low estimate--only forty dollars a
year--would be over A THOUSAND MILLIONS of DOLLARS! And its value, for
the purposes of mental and moral improvement, cannot be estimated except
in ETERNITY!

Every young mother must derive from these considerations a motive to
discourage all unnecessary waste of time in sleep; while no one, as I
trust, will forget that to sleep too little is also dangerous to health,
and prejudicial to the general happiness.

CHAPTER XV.

EARLY RISING.

All children naturally early risers. Evils of sitting up late at night.
Excitements in the evening. The morning, by its beauties, invites us
abroad. Example of parents. Forbidding children to rise early. Keeping
them out of the way. How many are burnt up by parental neglect.
"Lecturing" them. What is an early hour?

Some writer--I do not recollect who--has said that all children are
naturally early risers. And I cannot help coming to the same conclusion.
That they are not so, is no more proved from the fact that as things now
are they are generally found addicted to the contrary habit, than the
very general neglect of milk among the higher classes of our citizens,
proves that they have not a natural relish for it--when every one knows
that at our first setting out in life, milk is, almost without
exception, the sole article of human sustenance.

One of the great difficulties in the way of early rising, as I have
already had occasion to say, is late sitting up. If children are not
accustomed to retire till nine or ten o'clock, nor then until they have
been subjected to all the excitements pertaining to fashionable
life--company, heated and impure air, stimulating drink, fruits,
high-seasoned food, and perhaps music--and are become actually feverish,
no one but an ignorant person or a brute ought to expect them to rise
early. Indeed, whatever may have been the cause, and whether it have
operated on high or low life, late retiring will inevitably result in
late rising. The current may be turned out of its course a little while,
it is true, but not always. It will ere long return to its accustomed
channel; perhaps to renew its course with increased pertinacity.

Everything, in the morning, natur