Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1896-03-26


M Nm A growing disinclina-
NE tion of women to full
MAJ N fill their home duties
w " the governments Of
several European countries are gradual
ly inaugurating a new branch of educa-
ton destined to promote not only the
knowledge but also the taste for that
household work which is indispensable
to the comfort Of every home. The Bel
gian and German governments have al
ready had in operation for several years
past housewifery schools, and also house
wifery classes in the ordinary elemen-
tary schools, and other nations, such as
Holland, Sweden, Italy and Great Brit
ain, are now taking steps to follow in
the same direction.
In the housewifery schools girls are
carefully trained by thoroughly COM
petent persons in the way theyshould
go when once they become wives and
mothers. They are Taught with exceeding
patience and minuti3 the laws Of health
and Of domestic economy, the origin and
propagation of disease, as we'll as the
be applied in cases Of emergency and
when doctor is not to be found.
They also learn how to look after in
valids and young children and many
other precious and eminently useful de-
tails of practical life i'll small house
holds either i'll town or country. These
lessons. which are more theoretical than
fI,o, 30
take up about a fourth of the time de-
voted by pupils and masters to this new
branch Of education, while bedmaking,
stove cleaning. securing. busting. wash
ing, ironing, cooking. preserve making,
ETC., take up the balance Of the hours
which the girls spend within the walls
of the housewifery schoolhouses.
The cooking is not done on modern
stoves and ranges, which, Of course. are
not to be found III the homes Of the
poor, but is conducted on the simplest
basis before an open fireplace, and with
the aid of only the most ordinary kinds
of utensils, such as marmitesn (soup
pots) of the old fashioned type, frying
pans and plain earthernware saucepans.
One Of the points on which the tutors
and tutoresses are the most strict is that
everything that is done should be thor
oughly we'll done, and that perfect
cleanliness should be observed in the
smallest details. Of course the variety
Of dishes which the girls learn how to
cook is not Of very wide range, but
still when they leave the school they
understand the comparatively difficult
art of making a good omelet, Of boil
ing vegetables to turn, Of making pal
atable and nutritive soups from com
mon herbs and vegetables, of curing
hams and of roasting, boiling or broiling
and stewing all manner Of meat, fowl
and fish Nor is that all. for there is
also a course Of plain gardening includ-
ed in the studies of the future country
housewife, where they are shown how
to till the ground, how to weed and
how to grow those vegetables which are
so useful to the poor-namely, cabbages,
carrots, leeks, onions, and many vari-
cites Of salad.
This, by the by, is not new idea,
for in Austria, for instance, there have
existed since many years number of
schools conducted upon a remarkably
intelligent basis and founded by En-
press Elizabeth in absolute opposition
to any other schools in the world. There
reading, writing and counting are but
of secondary moment, for these rural
establishments are intended to develop
in the children of peasants and noun
taineers such knowledge as Will prove
most useful TO them in after life. The
teachers, who are specially selected by
the imperial lady herself, are there to
show their young charges how to read
the shepherds y weather glass i'll sky and
flower, how to distinguish the insects
which are dangerous to their crops, the
name and use of every plant of the
woods, the mountains or the fields and
many another bit of household and out
door lore that are not to be found i'll
books. These schools. built amid the
green pastures and wooded slopes of the
beautiful upper Austrian land, are the
pride of the kaiserin, as well they
might be, for they have done untold
good among the poorer classes of her
vast empire. Boys and girls 60 there to-
gether, and while the little girls become
excellent housewives, their brothers are
taught different trades, such as carpen-
tering, bricklaying, practical farming,
etc. Healthy and wise do these children
become, inhaling as they do the pure,
unsullied air of the neighboring noun
tains, working in the specially laid out
plots of ground devoted to their garden
ing hours, and finally. as a reward,
learning how to sing and play the Aus
trian national instruments, the either,
the cymbalnm or the reed flute, with
extreme perfection.
In Vienna there are also some house
wifery schools attached to restaurants,
the receipts Of the latter serving to keep
up the former, but there the instruction
is more or less restricted to cooking. and
to cooking of a more complicated nature
at that. Nevertheless they have proved
very beneficial. and are now being copied
at Berlin, Budapest, Prague and in
other smaller cities OF Germany and
Austria Hungary, but they are rather in
tended for the training Of maidservants
than for that Of the housewife in gen
eral, whereas the housewifery schools,
which are now in full activity in Bel
gium, Denmark and in France, address
themselves especially to the daughters
Of the peasantry and Of the lower mid
die classes, and when the girls have
conquered their brevet de capacite, .
or certificate Of capacity, feat which
they accomplish after from two to four
years tnition, they are as we'll fitted as
In them lies to be at the head OF a
home. whether that home is that Of a
rich farmer, of peasant in more than
modest circumstances, or that Of some
poor employee or small bourreois