Charles City intelligencer. [volume] (Charles City, Floyd County, Iowa) 1864-1866, 1865-09-07
NUMBER 81.

ing table, suitable to those who main
tain it, was every housewives pride.
But that was when mothers and grand
mothers had sway, and when knowl-
edge of what good housewifery deman-
ded for the health and comfort Of the
family was not thought to be too low
for any young lady's attention. Our
modern system of female education,
which is the result of combined vani-
ty and stupidity, has changed all that
And it is the rule of most families in
which manual labor of all the members
is not demanded, to so rear the daugh-
ters that they shall be while unmarried,
of less real use in the world than any
thing else apon which the sur shines.
They are taught to sputter little
French, of which no native of France
could possibly understand single
word years of precious time are spent,
in obedience to a nonsensical dictate
of fashion, in the vain endeavor to ac-
quire little proficiency on that most
abused of all good instruments, the
piano forte; and if the expiration Of
the pupilage finds them able to drum
out common waltz or march with
out agonizing all bystanders who know
music, they have done well and, ii in
addition, they can sing a German or
French song in style which gives
pleasure to neither themselves nor any
body else, they are accounted prodi-
gies, as indeed they are. A few Of
thorn lrox N Ano{cyanI nT
gridiron or loaf from the oven) so
we'll that if the subject of the sketch
is stated in fair print underneath, the
looker-on will know at once what was
intended by it. Most of them paint,
1--WE believe rouge is the fashion Just.
now, but thousand of them could
not earn q house painters wages by
the most assiduous exercise Of this ac-
complishment .-.......
Reading is confined, for the most
part, to the inevitable novel Of the SEN
timental school and to the sensational
parts of the daily paper, while the SOL
id elements of education are almost
wholly neglected. In word, those
things which are in their nature pure
ly ornamental, and which, in nine cases
out of ten, are forgotten long before
middle age is reached, and insisted up
on to the exclusion of other things
that are the business of everyday life
Youth, the time for preparation for the
duties of middle age, is virtually was
ted. Nothing which relates to the
great matters of maternity, to the care
Of children or the management of the
household is taught On these things,
blank ignorance is the rule.
This race of women who have had
this training are now the mothers Of
families, and to them the education Of
cooks is intrusted. As for the cooks
themselves, we need not say what
their early education was. They go
to service to learn, and what they learn
from teachers who know nothing Of
what servants ought to acquire, let the
experience of nearly all the families Of
this city bear witness. In another
generation the art Of cookery will be a
lost art if there is not reform. 1t is
kept alive now only by the foreigners
who come among US bringing the
training and experience Of their early
homes but they, too, soon follow in
the wake of American progress" and
now Bridget and Katrina think that it
is only genteel to copy the example of
the daughter to the manor born, and
despise the art by which health is pro-
NOTED and home made comfortable.
Wanted, cook. Until female edu-
cation has new direction in this coun-
try, that want will be unsupplied in
thousands OF well-to-do families in
which the next thing to starvation
starvation in the midst of abundance
lis curse only temporarily and at
long intervals relieved because the
real difficulty is not that Bridget will
not learn, but that there is nobody to
instruct her. She has good intentions
and is SO far human, that for her own
eating she prefers good bread to half
cooked and sour dough, and tender,
juicy steak to a burnt, tough and un-
palatable chip. She desires high wa
ges as the reward Of competence and
skill, in preference to small pay for ig-
norance and unthrift but cooking is
an art, and she has and can have no
instruction. Her employers are worse
off than she is, and maid and mistress
alike 60 hungry. The truth is that the
Americans, in the preparation of their
food, are only few degrees removed
from the savages that they have driv-
en- off the soil and in all affairs of do
nestle economy the retrograde move
Dent is the cause Of real and justi6a-
BILE alarm. There is show and unboun-
ded expense, but as the pomp comes
in at the parlor door, comfort escapes
through the kitchen.
Wanted, as the precursor of a cook,
a system of female education that
shall make the duties and business Of
life matter OF prime concern, and
that treats accomplishments only as
the garnish of substantial, savory
and healthful DISH Chicago Tribune.