The Cecil Whig., 1871-04-22

l
| girl plenty of candy and slatepencil, and it il
little matter to her what she gets for dinner
provided the dishes are pretty and the
napkins white; but for good, generous
appreciative feeder commend me to boy
tin plate, bit of shingle, or a fiat stone
will answer for china, if you give him
plenty to eat. An abundant, nutritious
and varied diet is legitimate want of his
nature; and if it is not supplied he will be
stunted in mind and body. Girls arc
either naturally deficient in this essentia
to vigorous mental and physical growth
or it is so repressed and restrained as tc
become dwarfed. One seldom finds g
woman who would give moments con-
sideration to the difference between one OF
Blots best steaks and piece of beef which
has been fizzled in a frying pan for any
length of time from one half-hour to four
1t is notorious that when women live alone
their diet is principally toasts and tea, with
tea and toast by way Of variety. When
| they make up their minds to have treat,
or entertain company, they grow reckless
of expenses and cook an egg, get out pot
of preserves, bring in a smoked herring, o
| slice of dry beef, or some other extrava-
gance, which limits the quantity of butter
| on toast for week after. They literally
starve themselves to get the means of
dressing handsomely; then, all spiritless
and unnerved, wonder why they cannot
make their way in the world. The amount
infict upon themselves and their children
is positively frightful. The boys of such
families usually live in a state of chronic
instruction, while the girls settle down
and accept pretty dresses as substitute
for food. Who does not know some widow
who has struggled to raise her family gen.
teelly, and seen them die, one after another,
as they approached or soon after they
reachdd majority? The food was not suffi-
cient to sustain the growth, and they
perish Of slow starvation l know of sew
eral such cases, and others where children
brought up in this way linger on in a kind
of comatose state, incapable of any suffi-
cient action of mind or body. l would
correct this evil, and find use for the unem-
ployed boy-power which is running to
waste in every street of city and town and
village, by teaching every boy the art of
cooking and clothing him with more or
less of a cook S authority in the family.
Get butcher to teach him the special use
of every cut Of beef, just what part of the
living animal it represents, and how to
know it at sight; teach him to make the
purchases and keep account Of them, to
take directions from a cookbook; and pay
him for well-done work. If there are girls
in the family, let them set tables and look
after dishes; or, in some way, divide the
work fairly, giving to each that portion for
which he or she is best qualified by natural
| taste and ability.
The cooking and marketing for an ordi-
nary family would be no serious interfer-
ence with school hours especially if there
are two boys in the family. A halfhour
is enough time in which to prepare break
fast; and all the dinner vegetables can be
prepared, and some of them, with the soup,
set to cook before morning school-time.
The mother, or some one at home, can
give the necessary attention during school
hours; and the boy who has to finish cook
his dinner before lie eats it will get home
early, and soon learn to get up nice din
her in very short time.
Once in the habit and not few of them
will follow up the business for life; and it
will be quite right that they should do so.
All those men who spend their lives in
daily eruption of the red-hot lava of impre-
cation because their dinners are spoiled are
themselves unquestionably spoiled cooks.
Their light has been hidden under bushel,
their talents buried and they forced into
uncongenial work by purely arbitrary
law. They very probably have wives who
could attend to their downtown business
quite as well, if not better than they; but
who never can or will learn to cook. These
unfortunates very probably spend their
lives in mertyrdom of endeavor, and
become soured and wretched through the
unremitting fault finding which is their
only reward for an hourly crucitixion OF
their own tastes and earnest effort to do
what is required of them. In any case
where a man knows himself to be possessed
of this inordinate love of food, and the
intuitive knowledge of how it should be
prepared, while his wfe's deficiency in
this respect makes it constant conflict
with nature for her to attempt to meet his
requirements, the wisest and shortest way
is for him, so to order his business that he
can be his own cook, or employ some one
gifted in this line, while his wife attends
to some business for which she has a
natural adaptation. If his business is mer-
chantile, or anything that requires account
keeping, the probabilities are that she
could learn all about it, and become an
efficient helpmate in it, with little Of the
effort she would waste in trying to learn to
cook. Let each individual do that fol
which he or she has a natural adaptation,
and see if the cooking is not done by men
and boys.