Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1889-02-15
Good Dinners and Good Morals.

During the year lately ended eighteen
hundred girls We're graduated from the
cooking schools Of Boston.
There is in this record and in the
records like it being made especially
in the larger cities throughout the
country, the sign of an evolution in
average home life and home happiness
whose good results can scarcely be
measured.
In the first place, after long years OF
foolishness as To what constitutes
proper and genteel womanly occupa-
ton, it has of sudden become fashion
able for women TO know how to be
competent home-managers and house,
wives. The woman who ten years ago
boosted with "a sort of aristocratic pride
that she "knew nothing whatever Of
the duties of housekeeping, is now be-
coming heartily ashamed Of the admis-
sion Gas she ought TO be) whenever she
is compelled to make it; and it is the
populariZing of the cooking school
primarily, that has wrought the
change.
In this growing domestic efficiency
and self-reliance Of the young women
who are to found homes, is also the be-
ginning of the end of the servant-girl
problem. which in late years in Ameri-
can cities has threatened TO overshadow
in its practical Importance almost all
other problems -domestic, social. Or
political. a competent woman at the
head OF a household will have compe-
tent servants about her; she will
speedily train into competency those
she already has, or else she will get
rid OF them. And the very moment
infficiency among domestics who work
for wages fails to find employment,
that moment efficiency will begin to
develop. When mistresses OF homes
are willing and able "tO do their work
alone" in preference TO having it done
by slovenly and incapable girls, then
slovenliness and incapability will begin
TO disappear.
But this coming in of generation of
daughters and wives and mothers COM
petent TO act intelligently as cooks and
to order and preform all the details Of
household employment whether their
financial state requires them TO do so or
noD is to have far larger meaning
than mere family convenience.
Whether in parlor or kitchen, the skill
ed touch and arrangement OF the wife
or mother inmate of the home. has diff
ferent and better effect than the skilled
touch of even the most skilled hired
servant; indeed the nearest approach TO
the domestic ideal is found oftenest in
the homes too poor for servants. The
administration Of that woman who in
her home knows how means for hus-
band and children more wholesome
and healthful home life, at table and
everywhere else, than is possible when
through ignorance or invalidism or
what not, the mother is compel to de-
pend solely on hired help. 1t is the ex-
pert and experienced and aifectionate
superintendent OF details by the wife
and mother that always dfferentiates
the home from the hotel or boarding
house.
With that superintendance exercised
rs it will be when al t e girls are
trained 10 become and are proud To be-
come home-keepers the physical and
mental and moral health of every men,
Der in the home will thereby be made
better.
The life of man wherever lived il
the reflection of his life at home; and
the state takes its character from the
fireside. Civ sukee Wisconsin.