The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-08-21 00:00:00

LOCAL SCHOOLS FOR COOKERY.

The following letter, which has been sent to The Times
for publication, conveys information in connection with
this useful movement, perhaps not generally known:
Sir,—Having watched the development of the National
Training School for Cookery from its beginning, I think it
may be generally useful to direct attention to the present
state of the arrangements of the School, so that the country
at large may take advantage of them.
The School, which by the way is in vacation till the 12th of
September, is now fully organized for training teachers to
give instruction in localities varying with the circumstances
of each place.
It has been demonstrated that any village school with 100
girls and upwards may have simple cookery suitable for
artisans Ind labourers taught in the school if the school will
first send a girl to the Training School to be taught in the
artisan class for three weeks at a fee of three guineas. The
aimual capital required by the village school ought not to
reach £2O. This includes the purchase of food—which is
consumed by the children who are found in numbers able
to pay twopence a head for their dinner which they help to
cook in learning.
If the locality has several elementary schools and a popu-
lation of about 3 000 or 4,000, including neighbouring vil-
lages, then an organization is possible which would teach
cookery, not only in elementary schools, but to ladies of the
middle classes who are or wish to be wives, and not to be
ladies only, to domestic servants and artfzans' wives. In this
case, as in that of the elementary schools, the first want is to
get a teacher, but this is not difficult to meet.
Let a locality feel the want of a School for Cookery, and
its first work is to subscribe about £25 and to send a com-
petent person to the National Training School to become a
certificated teacher. Such person should be well educated,
as well educated as a good elementary schoolmistress. She
may well be the daughter of a clergyman, doctor, lawyer, or
half-pay Army or Navy man, but she must have the desire
to earn her own living and be content with an income of from
£3O to £lOO a year, forgiving, say, 40 weeks' instruction So
much the better if she has had any experience of teaching
children in a Sunday or other school and has acted as a dis-
trict visitor. She must have no defect in speaking, as she
will have to address numbers in a class. Her age should be
between 20 and 30.

When such a young lady has been selected by the locality,
she should be sent to the National Training School at South
Kensington to go through a complete course of instruction
which lasts 12 or 13 weeks, for which a fee of 10 guineas must
be paid on joining the schooL In addition to this fee there
will be the expense of travelling and living in London, which
may be put down at £l2 more.

_
Having obtained her diploma she may either return to the
locality from which she came or may be put on the staff of
the National Training School, when she will be guaranteed
£2 a week while teaching, or £1 a week while retained in the
National Training School when her services are not required
out of it.
If a locality wishes to have a full organization for a
cookery school of its own, say for 40 weeks' duration, or
even less, a local committee should be formed. The com-
mittee would arrange the rota of instruction to be given by
the teacher, who might give 10 lessons a week of two hours'
duration each. The rota might consist of one lesson a week
to a class of ladies in the morning, each lady paying 2s. 6d. a
lesson for a course of ten lessons, or more for a single lesson.
Once a week in the evening a lesson might be given to
ortisans' wives and domestic servants at 6d. a lesson. The
remaining four lessons Might be given to four elementary
schools which should pay 10s, a lesson for each school.
From 10 to 20 children might attend 43 lesson in their own
schooL The Education Department counts instruction in
cookery as attendanca at school, and pays 4s. for each
girl who passes an examination, if she obtains
or has obtained a fourth grade certificate. To establish a
moderato sized local School for Cookery which shall teach
the gentry, the shopkeepers, domestic servants, and artisans'
and labourers' wives, the local committee should first raise
in svms of 103. and upwards a guarantee fund of £l5O for 12
months about £3O of which should be paid at once in order
to send the teacher to be trained and to provide utensils.
The receipts for instruction, ctc., might be reckoned as
follows :—From gentry pupils receiving ten lessons in four
classes in succession, each pupil paying 2s. 6d. a lesson, say,
£6O from domestic servants and artisans, say, £10; four
elementary schools, each 20 lessons, with 20 students, say,
£4O; sale of food, £lo—total £l2O.

The working expenses would consist in paying the teacher
4,2 a week for forty weeks, and in providing a scullery-maid,
coals, food, and perhaps the rent of a suitable kitchen. 4

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If the locality wished to try an experiment for a sho tee
time than forty weeks, then the local committee might mak
arrangements with the National Training School for Cookery
to send a teacher for this shorter period, but the charge for
the teacher would be increased and travelling and other
expenses would have to be added. All these details may be
obtained of the Secretary of the School, Exhibition road
South Kensington. . .

At the present time, when great.numbers of the middle
classes are away from their homes to get health at the sea-
side, much suffering from bad cookery is undergone, for
every youthful drab is turned to cookery. The cure is only
to be found in local schools for cookery distributed over the
country. —I am, Sir, your obedient servant, II C.
August 17.

A Mr. Cameron Knickerbocker, a farmer residing
in Smithy'lle, Chenago County, set a turkey, recently, on
nineteen fresh turkey eggs. The fourteenth day one egg
was hatched. Six days there-after eleven more were hatched
and for the next seven days one egg a day, until the whole
nineteen were hatched; making fourteen days between the
first and the last hatching of the nest.