The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-04-24 00:00:00

THE STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER

SCHOOLS OF COOKERY.

In noticing' one of the "Circulars of Information of the
Bureau of Education," entitled "Training Schools of
Cookery," and issued from the Government Printing Office
at Washington, The Times remarks :

"Beyond the limits of the United Kingdom the in-
fluence of the National Training School for Cookery
is being extended. Colonies like Austitlia' Canada,
Ceylon, and New Zealand are beginning to estab-
lish schools of cookery. We have now before
us a report issued from the National Bureau
of Education at Washington upon training schoas
of cookery in the United States of America.
A lady, Mrs. S. A. Martha Canfield, is officially
charged with the care of subjects of domestic
education in that office. It appears that 'let-
ters are received from persons who are devoted
to the promotion of the welfare of mankind, and
who have become alarmed as they have observed
more closely the extent and serious character of the
evils caused by bad cookery. This feeling has been
emphasized by the distress which was caused by the
late depression in business; and they desire more in-
formation of what has been accomplished by instruc-
tion in this subject, especially in Europe, which this
office has peculiar facilities for obtaining.'
"A 1011., account accordingly is given of the
National Training School for Cookery at South Ken-
sington, of the English Northern Union of Schools for
Cookery, and of the Edinburgh and Liverpool Train-
ing Schools for Cookery. Little is said regarding in-.
struction on the Continent beyond a passing remark
upon the culinary thriftiness of the French as com-
pared with other nations.

"In several of the larger cities of the United States
cookery clubs exist, the lady members of which are
generally proficient in cooking. The New York
Cooking School, under the direction of Miss Juliet
Corson, is widely known as the foremost of similar
schools in America. It .commenced work in 1874.
Lectures were given on analysis of articles of food and
the effect they would have on the system after they
were eaten. Directions were then given as to choos-
ing and buying such articles. In the kitchen the
class of pupils watched the operations as performed by
Miss Corson and her assistants. Two years subse-
quently practice classes for a limited number of pupils
were instituted; and in 1877 a plain cook's class of
practice was opened under a Board of lady managers.
In 1878 Miss Corson commenced organizing local
classes for teaching the working people ; and she
delivered lectures illustrated by demonstrations at
various institutions like mission schools, orphan
hopes, and such like. In the demonstrations she
had the assistance of girls from the Training School.

"Besides compiling handbooks on domestic economy
and cookery, Aliss Corson has framed a considerable
scheme, which, if adopted, will lead to the establish-
ment of schools for training children of the working
classes, schools for the instruction of plain cooks,
schools for high-class cookery, and normal schools of
cookery, where ladies can be taught the theory and
practice of domestic economy. .

"Following the example of New Xork, Boston has,
with the assistance of Miss Maria Prrloa, established
a school of cookery. This lady has also helped in.
promoting similar work at Portsmouth, New Hamp-
shire, at New London, Connecticut, and at Aubburn-
dale, Massachusetts. Montreal has its cooking school.
The Illinois Industrial University has founded a,
school of domestic science, which aims at prepar-
ing young women for the housekeeper's duties.
The degree of Bachelor of Science is conferred upon
scholars in this school who successfully pass a series of
examinations in the subjects comprised under the title
of domestic science. At Memphis, lectures on domestic
economy are given in the Le Moyne Normal Insti-
tute, but as yet an experimental kitchen has not been
provided to meet a want which is much felt, The
Kansas State Agricultural College, Manhattan, ac-
knowledges the importance of instruction in domestic
economy and hygiene. A kitchen laboratory' has
been here completely furnished, and affords 'every
facility for drill in the art of cookery.' Domestic
economy is fully taught at the lowa Agricultural Col-
lege, Ames, where the students have the use of both a
kitchen and laundry. The Raleigh cooking school is
modelled after the pattern of the South Kensington
and New York schools. At Washington Miss Corson
headed the movement, which appears to have received
influential support and which is leading to the esta-
blishment of a school of cookery. Activity has been
displayed in favour of spreading means of giving prac-
tical instruction in cookery in other districts. The
success which has attended the efforts hitherto made
is in the main to be traced to the energy with which
Miss Corson has prosecuted her labours."

The Tintes also founds a leader upon the above, from which
we make the following extracts
"The Americans are getting the start of us in a
matter which concerns every household—indeed,
everybody. Man is, or ought to be, a cooking animal.
All living things have the faculty of taste; many,
indeed, to a much finer degree than man; but none
prepare their food. Nature has given us the fruits of
the earth, including the lower animals feeding on
them; she has also given us fire and water, with a
great abundance and variety of condiments rendering
our food, whether animal or vegetable, more stimu-
lating, savoury, and digestible. We have to make the
proper use of those materials. People with money in
their pockets and the sense to discriminate between
good cookery and bad can insure for themselves this
happy co-operation of nature's gifts, aids, and
appliances. They are doing it much better than their
forefathers even so recently as in the last century.
"But none are more interested in good cookery than
the poor. For their own needs they have to make the
most of the least, the best of the worst, and every-
thing with the fewest and humblest appliances, with
no time to spare. The mother of the family has to
clean and dress her children and get them off to
school before she can do anything towards the dinner.
In the evening there arises again a severer conflict
between her maternal and her conjugal duties.
The upshot of all is that the most conspicuous
feature in the poor man's meal is its . ready-
madedness ; that is, the very little aid re-
ceived from art by nature. Boiled vegetables,
dumpling, soaked bread, tea-kettle broth that
is, hot water with butter, or some equivalent,
floating Upon it—and a bit of boiled bacon, are the
utmost meal provided for the poor man returning
home cold, exhausted, and often wet through, at the
end of a long day's work. The resources of the
labourer's garden are few and soon exhausted; and as
for the herbs which Frenchwomen cull from the field
and the roadside for.the salad or the pot, the English-
woman could not afford time for the search, even if her
husband cared for a salad. But although the question
seems thus reduced to a necessity admitting of small
bhoice, it must not be forgotten that the English
labourer's diet has changed much within memory, in
some respects for the better, in others for the worse.
He will have only the finest wheaten bread, to the ex-
clusion of some important constituents in the grain; he
knows nothing of barley bread, or rye bread, or any
combination, or of oatmeal cake or porridge, while his
vegetables have been reduced year by year down to the
monotonous and unreliable potato. The general effect
on the health and strength of the poor is a ques-
tion. On the one hand, the children of the poor,
always out of doors, except when at school, and dining
on hard dumpling or simple lumps of bread, are often
healthier and stronger, and even more happy, than the
more favoured child whom parents, nurses, and cooks
are tempting with new delicacies and doctors are
waiting to rescue from outward infection or inward
disagreement. On the other hand, it is a very
common remark that the rising generation is a stunted
one in comparison with the past. But it is not only
for themselves that the poor have to learn cookery.
They have to cook for their betters. At the
age of fourteen the village girl, and often the
artisan's child also, has 'to go out to live.' Her
first essay is generally as a maid-of-all-work, when
she has to do all the cookery required for some very
economical household. At any age after that she may
be called on to assist in the kitchens of the rich, and,
unless the class of cooks is recruited from the ranks of
common industry better than it has been lately, the
rich will find themselves one day reduced to the
painful necessity of cooking their own dinners, for the
cry still increasing is that there are no cooks, and none
can say where- they are to come from. The school
itself is largely answerable for the deficiency. Be-
fore the rigid and now universal enforcement of
school attendance, the children saw a good deal
of cookery which, poor as it was, yet gave them
some taste and an inkling of knowledge. They new
see nothing, and they do nothing but read, write,
sum, sew, or knit. Already physiologists are detect-
ing in them the ill results of acquiring knowledge with-
out the proper alternation of practical employment,
and while we are casting about for some new remedy
for a new complaint, we seem to have forgotten that
we have withdrawn the Door children from their old
healthy and instructive share in household duties.
As the school has done some of the mischief, it
is bound to do its part in mending matters. On
the other side of the Atlantic, as will be seen by
a paper in another column, [an extract from
which we have given above,] some zealous ladies
are doing their 'best to organize lectures. schools
of cookery, and kitchens for demonstration. Our
own department began with confessing the want, and
has proceeded so much further as to offer head money
for the children that pass in cookery or domestic
economy, and to provide also the opportunities for a
course of instruction to the pupils In the training col-
leges. Yet it is evident there the matter stops.
Nothing serious is done. Other subjects are allowed
to press their superior claims to notice, and at this
moment we are even nearer than ever to the often
foretold consummation when, with the best gifts of
nature and the highest agricultm'al skill—indeed, with
the best flesh, fish, and fowl in the world, we shall not
be able to turn them to account because we lave none
'to cook them."

A USEFUL LAw.—lt was the law among the
ancient Jews that every man should learn a trade: He
Was not bound by any obligation to follow it, for if his
inclinations afterwards prompted him to seek another
occupation, he was at liberty to do so. The wisdom
of this law commends itself to every mind.
THE CAMPYLOMETER.—This name, meaning a curve-
measurer, is applied by M. Gaumet to a small pocket
instrument he has designed, for giving at a single
operation and by a simple reading (1) the metric length
of any line, straightor curved, traced on a map or a
plan ;and (2) the natural length corresponding to a
graphic length on maps with a scale of 1-80000, or
1-100900, or on maps whose scales or multiplies or sub.
multiplies of these. The instrument consists of a
dentated disc, five centimetres ili circumference
mounted on a micrometric screw in a frame, with
handle. The. two faces of the disc carry each a system
of border (1 1510115, the one being into 40, the other
into 50, parts. The circumference of the disc corre-
sponds to four kilometres on one of the scales just
referred to, and to five kilometres on the other (1-40 of
the disc on one scale, and 1-50 on the other, measuring
100 metres). As the disc passes over the line it is
desired to measure,i it moves laterally along the micro-
metric screw, and n front of a graduated scale in the
that
of
the scale,e.lts zero hoanvoi nhga
s in
a tt
merely
outsetly(the
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being
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terminated) to note the last graduation of the scale
beyond which the disc has stopped, and to add to the
value of this graduation the complementary length
furnished by the division of the disc opposite the scale.
ofsuonthar instrumenteasnsto aviouti.nn
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INCREASE OF EMIGRATION TO THE
UNITED STATES.

The New York Heraldeof the 28th ult., says :—The
unprecedented increase in immigration to this country
from the overcrowded communities of the Old World
still continues. Nearly fifteen hundred steerage pas-
sengers were landed at Casee Garden yesterday from
four European steamers, and the Rotunda presented
an active, bustling scene all day. The Abyssinia,
from Liverpool, brought 282 immigrant passengers ;
the Main, from Bremen' carried 764; the Schiedam.
from Rotterdam, numbered 307, and the Nevada,
from Liverpool, had 140, making a total for the day of
1,493, and a grand -total for the week ending yester-
day of 8,840. Since January 1 there have been regis-
tered at Castle Garden nearly 35,000 immigrants, an
aggregate which is about double that of any similar
period during the past five years.
As a usual thing the arrivals during the first quarter
of the year are very light, intending immigrants post-
poning their departure from home until the approach
of spring renders the passage of the Atlantic less
rigormw than in the severe months of winter. If the
increase continues in the same ratio—and l from informa-
tion received from the other side the Emigration Com-
missioners are inclined to think it will—the arrivals
for April will reach fully 50,000. The cause of the
augmented exodus from the old countries is, of course,
to be attributed to the failure of the crops and the
general depression in business in Europe, and the im-
provement and renewed prosperity here.
There has been a marked increase in the arrivals of
Swedes, Italians, and Hungarians. The latter are
generally destitute. The Swedes like the Germans,
are for the most part thrifty and possessed of some
means. They go at once to the West, purchase farms,
and settle down and become good citizens. The
Italians mostly settle in the large cities of the East.
They have less energy than their hardy brethren of
Northern Europe. There were a number of Italians
among . yesterday's arrivals, and many Germans and
Swedes.

The emigration from Ireland has not yet reached
here to any notable extent. It will undoubtedly be
very heavy this season.

In its issue of the 31st. ult. the same paper says :
The steamship Anchoria, from Glasgow, brought 612
immigrants to Castle Garden yesterday; the Nether-
lands, from Antwerp, 355; and the Bristol, from
Bristol, twenty-eight. Germans, Swedes, Danes, and
English are the prevailing nationalities of the new
arrivals. They are generally bound for the West,
and have through tickets to their destinations. Over
1,000 of the recent arrivals have been destitute Hun-
garians from the famine-stricken districts. The Emi-
gration Commissioners have paid the expenses of these
penniless foreigners and have provided work for all
but about 100 of them, who are now at Castle Garden
dependent upon the bounty of the State. There is a
good demand for labour, and employment will soon be
found for them.