The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-04-11 00:00:00

A YOUTHFUL ORATOR.

It used to be held that, while the poet is born, the
orator is manufactured. This doctrine, however, has
received a fatal blow. A young American gentleman,
named Brown, now five years old, is an experienced
orator. "Elocution and oratory," says the 'Many
joornal, "were perfectly natural t.) him from the
first moment that he will 3 able to talk." He
has already spoken many times in public before
large audiences, "reciting the most difficult and
lengthy pieces iii a manner unsurpassed by many
of our distinguished orators." He has a full voice,
speaks distinctly, itnows by heart 250 poems and
speeches, never forgets any 4 them, and "astonishes
everybody that hears him." Finally, he has only to
read the longest speech once or twice over to commit it
to memory. This young gentleman, with a congenital
tendency to plagiarism, the sports of whcse tender
years are the prosaic out-pourings of a baby naiad, is a
sort of prodigy we trust will not become too 'common
(says the (JtoLe). The 'Mischief such an hasp of
eloquence is likely to commit is too appl4ling.
At the ripe age of ten Master Itowo may be the
Demosthenes a the Amefloan Republic. Mean-
while his oratory must be somewhat perplexing and
embarrassing to his friends and guardians. He is not
likely to developthevirtues that springfrom the Golden
Silence of which Mr. Carlyle writes so pleasantly, and
the prospect of his being usefully impressed by any-
thing the paternal instinct may venture to observe in
shape of a "lecture," with a view to his improvement,
is not encouraging.

NATIONAL TRAINING SCHOOL FOR
COOKERY.

The following article, from The Toner, explanatory ot the
encuuraging 'results already obtained from the establishment
of a " National School of Cookery' at South Kensington,
will be read with much Interest, and as this much-needed
School was established to do a most important work for the
provinoes as well as London, the useful purpose it is designed
to accomplish cannot be too generally known :

At the conclusion of the lectures on cookery at the
International Exhibition of last year, those of the
audience who took a real interest in the subject used
to he requested to write their names in a book outside
the place where the lectures were held. More than
50,000 persons passed throughout the turnstile into
the kitchen during the season, and of these
nearly half signed their names to a declaration that
they would be glad to see the mode of cookery
among the middle and poorer clans sensibly ins.
proved. This expression of public opinion, added
to a vast amount of private encouragement in the
shape of letters from country clergymen and land
and mine owners, all betting forth the urgent need
of some such institution, led to the formation of the
prefent Training School for Cookery, the doors of
which have just opened to the general public. It was
felt last year that no real knowledge of the subject
could be acquired during a lecture of an hour, but there
is no doubt that those lectures were the means el at-
tracting the attention of thousands to an evil which ex-
ists in almost every middle-class household in a degree
which could not have been attained by any other method.
So satisfactory were the results, therefore, of the preli-
minary attempt .if last season that so soon as the time
for closing the Exhibition and discontinuing the lec-
tures drew near, the committee of gentlemen who had
organized the whole plan held a large meeting at
Grosvenor Hffuse, where a small but sufficient sum of
money was raised to enable them to start a more per-
manent mode of instruction. Accordingly, they formed
themselves into a small working committee, with the
Hon. F. Leveson Gower as their chairman, and Lord
Barrington, Sir Daniel Cooper, Mr. Cole, Major du
Cane, Mr. Hans Busk, and two or three others of
practical experience as the executive. The Commis-
sioners of the International Exhibition placed the con-
venient annexe which had been used as the kitchen at
last year's lectures at their disposal for the present,
and have facilitated the movement in every way.
After a few weeks spent in the necessary details of
the organization of an institution whiBh, though
modest and unpretending in its first outset, may still
be capable of almost indefinite expansion, the National
Training School for Cookery has at last stepped
forwsed to attempt to fill the gap so long existing
not in... I -tween the kitchens of the rich and poor,
but between those of the rich and the moderately
well-off, but immoderately ill-fed, English people.
It is true that they have at this moment only three
or four weeks' experience to go upon, but this
points to the most favourable results. In the first
week alone sixteen pupils joined the classes, and
among them are to be found young women from every
rank and grade of society. Indeed, the proportion
of young ladies desirous to do as their great-grand-
mothers did before them, and make themselves ac-
quainted with the minutest details of kitchen lore, is
larger than could possibly have been anticipated.
This is the more surprising when it is understood
that all have to submit to the same rules, no matter
what their rank or station in society may be. But it
will be as well, perhaps, to give in this place some
short and general idea of the course and method of
teaching offered to "learners "--a distinct class from
"instructors," 104 will be shown presently. Every
young woman who enters as a "learner," then,
pays a fee of two guineas, which sum is supposed to
cover the expenses of the materials which she uses
in learning to cook ; but before she can join the
afternoon class and learn to make soups, entretes,
jellies, omelettes, and so forth, she is required to go
through a preliminary course, in which she is taught
how to lay and light a tire, to scour a fryingpan, to
burnish copper saucepans, and many other humble
and useful pasts of kitchen education. After she has
thoroughly and satisfactorily passed through this
stage, and has learnt to do these things with her own
hands, she is then relegated to the bands of professed
cooks, who teach her all that she can possibly desire
to know. When this higher and more amusing course
of instruction is ended, then the " learner ' is ex-
amined, and receives a certificate of proficiency.
Side by side in these classes may be seen praty girls
of what is called " family " and isisition, young
matrons who declare they had no idea kitchen work
could be so "nice," cooks anxious to improve
themselves, rosy - checked country girls about
to take their first place—all working together
with a will, and vying as to who shall turn out the
most brilliant copper lid or the most resplendently
clean saucepan. With a profound knowledge id
feminine nature the Committee established the trifling
fine of only a guinea for any person who declined to go
through the preliminary course of instruction, but de-
clared that such a one could not be thorough and sin-
cere in her desire to be taught cooking, and, while
permitting her to dabble of an afternoon among
sauces and entr6es, refused to examine her as to her
proficiency or give her a certificate. This last tre-
mendous penalty appears to have determined the ques-
tion, for each applicant only inquires as she passes
from one stage of scrubbing to another, "Are you
sure this is all right for my certificate I" Fatigue and
even temporary blackness are all forgotten in the
anticipation of the coveted document. It is a conso-
lation to think that so much unemployed energy has
at last found a healthy outlet.

But satisfactory as this may be, it is not half,
nor yet the more important half, of the real work
of the Committee. However crying may have been
the grievance that the middle-class Englishman
could never get anything fit to eat except at his club,
however melancholy may have been the profound
ignorance of the middle-class Englishwoman as to
how things should be managed in the kitchen, it is
yet too much to expect that a committee of gentle-
men should devote their thoughts and time to a
subject which could be remedied by other means. The
real object of the National Training School of Cookery
at South Kensington is set forth in the second word
of its somewhat lengthy style and title. It is essen-
tially a training school—a school where young women
can be trained to go out in their turn as instructors
to the poor and ignorant masses who cannot come to
them to be taught. These instructors constitute a
totally different class from the learners, and are re-
cruited from the ranks of respectable young women
who need to earn their own bread, but wish to earn it
in some way above the ordinary routine of a servant's
life. To such the Training School opens its doors as
wide as they can open, and teaches them, after the first
inexorable necessity of scrubbing and cleaning, how to
make the very,most of the humble materials to be found
in a poor man s kitchen, and how to turn every scrap
of food to the best account on the most economical
principles. There is no charge whatever for this
course of instruction, and the only stipulation made
is that when the instructor's education has been
_ _

completed she shall hold herself at the disposal of
the Training School either as a paid teacher at home,
or to go out into the poor parishes or country towns
when required, and start other schools of instruction on
the same principles. There is but one difficulty in the
way of this plan, and that the Committee hope to see
remedied by the generosity of the public. It is this: -
They cannot at present afford to do more than teach
these young women for nothing a profession by which
they may earn a respectable living. Thy cannot
afford to board and lodge them except between the
hours of ten and four o'cloak. Now, the more respectable
the applicant, the more exactly she lathe sort of young
woman whose services the Committee desires to secure,
the less inclined are her friends to allow her to come
to London and find a lodging for herself where she
shall be left entirely to her own devices for a certain
part of her time. If it could be arranged that such
girls could be received in a home of some sort and
placed under kindly but firm supervision, the only
objection which has yet presented itself would be at
once done away with. As matters stand now, this
i want of a home s a serious obstacle to the instructors
coming forward, and in the meantime clergymen's
wives, rich landowners, imnmasters, manufacturers,
and many others are writing daily to ask the Com-
mittee to send some one to teach the artisans around
them, who are wasting their food through sheer
ignorance. It is to supply this need that the South
Kensington Kitchen has been organised, and there is
a little fear that in the rush of dilettanti scullerymaids
the real object of the Training School may be for.
gotten._
- - -

- The lectures which were found to be no attractive
last year are to be resumed on the opening of the
International Exhibition, and it has been arranged
that they should be delivered at the mane place by the
same lecturer, Mr. Buckmaster ; but. as the school is
in use for the practical working classes from ten till
four on all the other days of the week, the lectures can
be delivered only on Saturday afternoons, when all
who choose may come and hear many things that may
be strange and new to them.