Practical Hints from a Father to His Daughter

The following work was originally designed to be preserved in manuscript, as a legacy to a motherless child. The circumstances which have resulted in its being given to the world, it is unnecessary to state. The author has only to add his earnest prayer that it may be read with some degree of advantage by young girls into whose hands it may chance to fall; and especially by those whom the righteous providence of God has deprived of the benefit of maternal care and instruction. There is surely no judicious American parent who would not rejoice in the possession of this unpretending work, not merely as a lesson of wisdom for a beloved daughter on entering the unattempted trials of life, but as an invaluable monitor to the adult ear. The subject is a serious one to a reflecting mind, and the writer has dwelt upon it in seriousness - yet it is seldom indeed that anyone has succeeded so well in exciting and sustaining the deepest interest of the reader. Practical Hints from a Father to His Daughter is a work that we can most sincerely recommend to the perusal of every parent and every daughter in our country! And it is our earnest hope and belief that it will produce a beneficial influence upon the character of the rising generation.

William Buell Sprague (October 16, 1795 Andover, Connecticut - May 7, 1876 Flushing, New York) was an American Congregational and Presbyterian clergyman and compiler of Annals of the American Pulpit (nine volumes, 1857–1869), a comprehensive biographical dictionary of the leading American Protestant Christian ministers who died before 1850. His books include "Letters on Practical Subjects from a Clergyman of New England to His Daughter" (Hartford, 1822), "Letters from Europe First Published in the New York Observer" (New York, 1828), "Lectures to Young People" (New York, 1830), "Lectures on the Revival of Religion" (Albany, 1832), "Hints Designed to Regulate the Intercourse of Christians" (Albany, 1834), "Lectures Illustrating the Contrast Between True Christianity and Various Other Systems" (New York, 1837), "Memoir of Rev. Edward Dorr Griffin, D.D." (Albany, 1838), "Letters to Young Men" (Albany, 1844), "Life of Timothy Dwight" (Albany, 1845), "Aids to Early Religion" (New York, 1847), "Words to a Young Man's Conscience by a Father" (Albany, 1848), "Monitory Letters to Church Members" published anonymously (Philadelphia, 1855), "Visits to European Celebrities" (Boston, 1855), "Annals of the American Pulpit" (New York, 1857–1869) (9 vols.), "Memoirs of Rev. John McDowell, D.D., and the Rev. William A. McDowell" (New York, 1864), "The Life of Jedidiah Morse" (New York, 1874).