"Household education is a subject so important in its bearings on every one's happiness and so inexhaustible in itself that I do not see how any person whatever can undertake to lecture upon it authoritatively as if it was a matter completely known and entirely settled. It seems to me that all that we can do is to reflect and say what we think and learn of one another. This is at least all that I venture to offer. I propose to say in a series of chapters what I have observed and thought on the subject of Life at Home during upwards of twenty years' study of domestic life in great variety. It will be for my readers to discover whether they agree in my views and whether their minds are set to work by what I say on a matter which concerns them as seriously as any in the world. Once for all let me declare here what I hope will be remembered throughout that I have no ambition to teach; but a strong desire to set members of households consulting together about their course of action towards each other."