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

The estimated expense of introducing the kitchen outfits was $200 per department, 60 departments, $12,000; kitchen supplies, 8100 per department, 60 departments, $6,000. The estimated expense of main- taining the kitchen outfit in succeeding years was $1,200, and for kitchen supplies $6,000. In this report mention is made of two schools in New York City in which cooking was already taught. One of them was the Wilson Industrial School for Girls, in which school the pupils were under 12 years of age, and who after leaving generally became self-supporting. The teachers of this school stated that the kind of instruction given waked the children up mentally, and was favorable for fitting them for the duties of active life. In another school, at 2s o. 9 University Place, New York, an industrial institution under Miss Alice Burns, consisting of several classes which met at different times, there was an excellently equipped cooking room for a class of sixty. Going into practical operation in the year 1888, manual training gradually commended itself to teachers and trustees until it nearly reached the limit prescribed by the board as proper, in view of the necessity for what may be called conservative progress in the experi- mental stage of a new and important departure. The report on this work made by Oity Superintendent John Jasper for the first year after its introduction is as follows: This highly interesting method of instruction has heen pursued in twenty schools and departments during the last year. * * * The total nuiner of pupils in these schools and departments is ahout ten thousand, and steadily, carefully, and en- couragingly have these children worked in the course mapped out hy the hoard of education. Owing to the shortness of the period during which the experiment has been tried, it would he unwise to express a definite opinion in regard to the future of manual training. From present appearances, however, it is certain that the children have a love for it, and the parents have a keen appreciation of its advan- tages. The progress that has heen made in the initial stage of a new and untried method is to he highly commended, and the readiness with which most of the teachers have fallen into line in the effort to help the good work along is greatly 1 At this time there were in the primary schools 6 and in the grammar schools 8 grades, the lirst being the highest. 13 to their credit. They aim at opening channels for the development of manly and womanly qualities, hitherto more or less unobserved or unpopular, that must and will have a powerful bearing on the future happiness and prospects of the nation. All the branches of this course of study are thriving — and there is an important point — all the branches, separation of them being impossible. People who dream of pedagogic branches and of manual-training branches in the same department as separate and unrelated things have not yet grasped the subject. The manual of this course of study has beeu arranged so that all the branches of education are inter- woven in such a manner as to make a distinction impossible. It does not mean merely the training of the hand; it means the training of our every faculty. The fundamental truths underlying the manual training methods should, above all things, be known and understood by the teachers and public generally.