History and present status of instruction in cooking in the public schools of New York city

My teachers are working faithfully to keep up with the progress of all the sciences and research that bear upon the proper conduct of the home, and particularly the investigation relating to the food and nutrition of man. They have studied and worked with me in the biological laboratory of the New York University every Sat- urday during the winter, and we have planned to continue this study in connection with physiological chemistry at the summer course of this same university. With such intelligent and earnest workers, do you think it too extravagant to hope 35 that an article may some day he written telling that the teaching of cookery or home science has greatly reduced infant mortality, contagious diseases, intemperance in eating and drinking), divorces, insanity, pauperism, competition of lahor between the sexes, men's and women's clubs, etc. ? You have asked me my hope for the future for this work, and this is my firm hope : That this work, so truly woman's, will, by forming a part of every girl's education, bring about great changes in the home life. The girl who learns to-day the chem- ical composition of the potato, as well as how to cook it, will hardly, as the future mother, boast that her six months' boy "just loves " potatoes, nor will she be foolish enough to allow him a taste of everything at the table. She has been trained to know that the little white hearse has stood at the door of many a home because the young mother did not know how to feed and cloth and nurse her baby. The "little woman" who has taken the lessons on combustion and economy in the use of fuels will not use the full force of gas in a half a dozen burners to cook her dinner, for she has learned that one burner turned very low will keep water at boil- ing point, and that no amount of heat can make it hotter. The simple little experiments in the school kitchen on the composition of air have caused the little housekeeper to realize that it is positively injurious to health to sit in closed rooms on the winter evenings with lamps lighted or the gas stoves burn- ing without any flue connections. And so it is with the lesson on the chemistry of cleaning. Our little girl is wonderfully interested in the bacteria of the dishcloth, and the ice box, and the garbage pail, and when she becomes mistress of a home these things will receive her attention as well as the parlor, library, and music room . If John can not afford to give her all 1 hese rooms, she has been trained to know that she can be just as happy if she must make one room answer the three purposes, and besides, being an American, she has this thought to comfort her, that under this glorious Government her thrift and economy may help to place her husband among the millionaires. With such a wife John will not need to go to the liquor store, nor will you see John, jr., among the boys who buy a hot fried cake for a penny and a cup of coffee for a penny, and stand in the snow and slush to eat them, as I have seen them do down in the Post-Office Square. For this little mother, I would have you know, learned how to make whole-wheat bread at school, and she knows that one of her nice light muffins and a little flat bottle of heated and cooled milk which she tucked in Johnny's pocket in the morning will give him more nourishment than a cart load of coffee and fried cakes.