The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-10-04 00:00:00

INTELLIGENT COOKERY.

" An Old Housekeeper' hail eent the following letter to The
TIII4CB toe publication

In your report last Wednesday of the Brad-
ford meeting on behalf of the National Union for lin.
proving the Education of Women, I observe that
several gentlemen among the audience expressed great
anxiety that cooking should be taught in the new and
better echools proposed to be established for girls of
the middle and upper classes. I entirely agree with
those gentlemen as to the value of good cookery in
promoting the health and comfort of a house.
hold, and especially the amiability of its master; and I
also admire the forenight which, looking to the probable
rise of wages and independence among female cer mute,
and the increasing difficulty of getting good ones,
would provide substitutes so convenient as wives, who
would receive no wages and be unable to give warning.
But what I wish to point out to these gentlemen and
the many others of their sex who hold the same
views, who raise a cry on behalf of cookery when-
ever the higher education of women is discussed is,
that this very education is the most direct and
certain means of attaining their object, even though
the governing bodies of the schools may declare
to include cookery in their curriculum. This may
seem • paradox, but it will turn out sober truth
if we inquire what are the intellectual and moral
habits necessary to form a good cook and housekeeper.
I add the latter qualification, though it wee not men-
tioned at Bradford, taking for granted that the gentle-
men whose anxieties about their future domestic com-
fort lam endeavouring to relieve, though they give the
first place to the interests of their palate, are not in-
different to the intends of their purse, and desire
that their wives, In addition to skill in cookery, should
poetess skill in domestic management. The habits re.
q aired, then, are, intellectually, thoughtfulness, method.
delicacy and accuracy of perception, good judgment,
and the power of readily adapting means to varying
circumstances, which with our COUEIMI over the water
Is termed "faculty." and with its bears the homelier
name of "handiness." Morally they are, conscien-
tiousness, command of temper, industry, and per-
severance. Now these are the very qualities • good
school education must develops and cultivate. The
object of such an education is not, be it remembered,
to put into the pupil so much history, geography,
French, or science, but through these studies to
draw out their intelligence, train them to observe
facts correctly, and draw accurate inferences
from their observation, which constitutes good
Judgment, teach them to think and to apply thought
easily to new forms of knowledge. Morally, the disci-
pline of a good school tends directly to form the habits
I mentioned above. The pupils are trained to steady
Industry and perseverance, to scorn dishonest work,
and to control temper. The girls who leave school so
trained, though they may know nothing of ceoking or
housekeeping, will become infinitely better cooks and
housekeepers, as soon as they have a motive for doing
so, than the uneducated wo au who has learnt only
the technical rules of her craft,

I assume that the gentlemen, if quite secure in the
matter of cookery, would not object to their wives
being also welliinformed and cultivated women though
I can see that this may. be a disadvantage when the hue-
bands have neither information nor culture. There re
mains only one fear which I eannot remove—namely,
that such women, with all the:r splen lid capabilities
for cooking and housekeeping, might, in their turn,
object to placing themselves at the disposal of men in
whose eyes these formed their chief attractions, and
might decline to bee ime the helpmates of those who
wanted help only in the kitchen and the storeroom.