Woodenware is light, but absorbs grease and odors. For this reason it should be used as little as possible. But there is nothing better for stirring than a wooden spoon. Method. — As a preparation for the study of the kitchen, the girls might be required to bring in plans of the home kitchen, lists of the utensils, classifying them according to the materials from which they are made. Exhibitions of various articles in bad condition will be useful, provided they are made a means of leading them to see the causes that have led to their destruction and the means by which it might have been avoided. The object of this preliminary lesson is to interest the girls in the kitchen and to make them, unconsciously to themselves, study that room in their own house. This chapter has been divided into two sections : the first of which deals with heat, combustion, fuel, fire, and the range; and the second with cleaning, including a slight study of plumbing. 32 HANDBOOK OF DOMESTIC SCIENCE SECTION I Tire bibliography Fire. — Creation Myths of Primitive America, Curtin ; Old Greek Stories, Baldwin (The Story of Prometheus) ; Open Fireplace in All Ages, Putnam ; The Sun, Young ; Text-book of Physics, Hall and Bergen ; Chemistry in Daily Life, Lassar and Cohn ; Organic Chem- istry and Inorganic Chemistry, Eemsen ; Heating and Ventilating Buildings, Carpenter ; Fire AVorship, Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 10, p. 17 ; Public Opinion, Vol. 14, p. 251 ; Evolution of Methods of Heating and Cooking, American Kitchen Magazine, Vol. 3, p. 51 ; History of the Fireplace, Chambers's Journal, Vol. 3. Heat Facts : History of Fire. — Man has been defined as the cooking animal, as he alone seems to have produced heat by artificial means. Earliest historical records show that fire was known and used by primitive man, and to-day there is no tribe, however savage, that does not understand its use. Early Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans had their public fire kept constantly burning, while in our continent the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians had their sacred fires on large pyramids. Early religions held the fire as a sacred symbol of the greater source of all heat, the sun. Greek mythology tells of the bringing of fire from the sun's chariot by Prometheus, and the punishment which followed the sacrilege. So sacred was fire that the priests or the vestal virgins, whose duty it was to Avatch the fires, were held in awe by the populace. Theories of Heat. — Heat was at one time considered a material substance which might enter into or depart from a body, and the terms which to-day are used in discussing heat were based on this erroneous idea of heat's material existence. THE KITCHEN 33 Nature of Heat. — It is now believed that every physical body consists of a mass of minute particles, individual, invisi- ble, called molecules, which are in a state of constant motion, and that a rise in temperature is accompanied by an increased motion and consequent friction among these molecules. By friction of one body upon another we may so set up motion in these particles that the temperature will be in- creased as shown by the melting of ice when one .piece is violently rubbed upon another, or by the heat manifested when one piece of wood is rubbed briskly against another.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Woodenware is light, but absorbs grease and odors. For this reason it should be used as little as possible. But there is nothing better for stirring than a wooden spoon. Method. — As a preparation for the study of the kitchen, the girls might be required to bring in plans of the home kitchen, lists of the utensils, classifying them according to the materials from which they are made. Exhibitions of various articles in bad condition will be useful, provided they are made a means of leading them to see the causes that have led to their destruction and the means by which it might have been avoided. The object of this preliminary lesson is to interest the girls in the kitchen and to make them, unconsciously to themselves, study that room in their own house. This chapter has been divided into two sections : the first of which deals with heat, combustion, fuel, fire, and the range; and the second with cleaning, including a slight study of plumbing. SECTION I Tire bibliography Fire. — Creation Myths of Primitive America, Curtin ; Old Greek Stories, Baldwin (The Story of Prometheus) ; Open Fireplace in All Ages, Putnam ; The Sun, Young ; Text-book of Physics, Hall and Bergen ; Chemistry in Daily Life, Lassar and Cohn ; Organic Chemistry and Inorganic Chemistry, Eemsen ; Heating and Ventilating Buildings, Carpenter ; Fire AVorship, Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 10, p. 17 ; Public Opinion, Vol. 14, p. 251 ; Evolution of Methods of Heating and Cooking, American Kitchen Magazine, Vol. 3, p. 51 ; History of the Fireplace, Chambers's Journal, Vol. 3. Heat Facts : History of Fire. — Man has been defined as the cooking animal, as he alone seems to have produced heat by artificial means. Earliest historical records show that fire was known and used by primitive man, and to-day there is no tribe, however savage, that does not understand its use. Early Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans had their public fire kept constantly burning, while in our continent the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians had their sacred fires on large pyramids. Early religions held the fire as a sacred symbol of the greater source of all heat, the sun. Greek mythology tells of the bringing of fire from the sun's chariot by Prometheus, and the punishment which followed the sacrilege. So sacred was fire that the priests or the vestal virgins, whose duty it was to Avatch the fires, were held in awe by the populace. Theories of Heat. — Heat was at one time considered a material substance which might enter into or depart from a body, and the terms which to-day are used in discussing heat were based on this erroneous idea of heat's material existence. Nature of Heat. — It is now believed that every physical body consists of a mass of minute particles, individual, invisible, called molecules, which are in a state of constant motion, and that a rise in temperature is accompanied by an increased motion and consequent friction among these molecules. By friction of one body upon another we may so set up motion in these particles that the temperature will be increased as shown by the melting of ice when one .piece is violently rubbed upon another, or by the heat manifested when one piece of wood is rubbed briskly against another.

Handbook of domestic science and household arts for use in elementary schools