FoodNet

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

1899

Page 6

Presented as published in 1899. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
(2) That' manual training is admissible into our sehools only as a means of general, and not of special, education. (3) That, notwithstanding the misdirection of some of the efforts heretofore made in manual training, there are certain manual operations which time and experience have sufficiently tested to demonstrate their usefulness and their availability. These operations have the following characteristics: They are such as to lead the pupil to acquire correct conceptions of form through the careful and systematic discipline of his sense perceptions and to require as a test of the accuracy of these conceptions their correct manual embodiment in material, and further, to give a practical knowledge of natural laws and of the qualities of materials. They are within the scope of the faculties of all children whose minds and bodies are in a normal condition. Their results are of general, if not universal, utility as personal acquirements, apart from the educational value of the process. They are comparatively inexpensive, and their introduction will require but little room. They can be taught with but moderate addition to our present force of teachers. For such instruction the following, which, are not included in our present course of study, seem eminently suitable, viz, carpenter work, modeling in clay, construction work, drawing to scale, sewing, cooking. By judicious modification and extension the well-established methods of the kindergarten may readily be made available for the primary and lowest grammar school grades, so as to form with the subject already suggested a complete and continuous course. (4) That training in these branches, if adopted, should not be for a few selected hundreds of school children, but should be made an essential part of the authorized course of study for all. (5) That the regularity and continuity of school work should not be interrupted by sending out pupils for instruction elsewhere than in the school building to which they belong. (6 ) That the length of the school session should not be extended beyond the present limit. (7) That provision must be made for suspending the introduction of some of the proposed work in certain schools. The carpenter work and the cooking will require 12 the setting apart of a room for each purpose. This in some schools it would he impossible to do at once. It would probably not be possible in the first year to introduce the kitchen and workshop into more than one-third of the grammar- school departments. During their deliberations the committee adopted resolutions for the establishment of this work, one of which reads as follows : Resolved, That in the girls' grammar schools cooking should be taught in the third and second grades.1 That instruction in cooking and shop work should be suspended as to each school until a suitable room is provided through the action of the trustees. That the instruction in shop work, cooking, and sewing should be under the direc- tion of special teachers, who should be licensed, employed, and paid in the manner now provided for special teachers. That to secure efficient instruction an additional assistant superintendent should be appointed whose special duty should be to super- vise under the city superintendent all the work in manual training in the primary and grammar schools.