Various

“ Mr Septimus Redgrave had attained the mature age of fifty without losing either of his pet theories—that this world is anything but a vale of tears, and that the wicked people in it are decidedly in the minority. These comfortable doctrines were no doubt attributable to the fact that Mr Redgrave was in the enjoyment of a small independence, was master of his own time, possessed of good health, and had never ventured on the uncertain voyage of matrimony. ”

“ A woman can obtain a more sensible, more thorough, in every way a better education in book-knowledge now than at almost any previous period of our national life; but the gain has been made at a price. Reaction is required, and indeed has set in already. We may see its fruits in the schools of Cookery for Ladies established in all our great towns; in the classes for dressmaking, clear-starching, and ironing; in the newly awakened interest in domestic economy as a science, in the countless books on that subject and on cookery published during the last few years. ”

“ The fact of our brother having inherited a fortune will inspire her with fresh courage. New methods of attack will at once be resorted to, and the assault will never cease till she has reduced the fortress to submission. I never saw Miss Jones but once, but that was sufficient.’
‘I fully agree with you, my dear sister,’ said Lavinia; ‘but where do you propose to find a suitable partner for Septimus?’
‘We have no occasion to look far. Under this very roof is a lady adapted in every sense to make dear Septimus a suitable partner.’
‘I suppose you mean Mrs Fraser?’ mildly observed Lavinia. ”

“ We find one hundred and one deaths recorded—fifty-eight by accident and forty-three by suicide—from seven substances alone, not one of which the legislature at present requires to be labelled poison! Surely this requires some looking after. We find seventy-eight deaths (not suicides) from lead-poisoning. We would like to know how far these seventy-eight deaths are to be accounted for from absorption of the poison by those working amongst it, and how far they might have been avoided by ordinary precautions? ”

“ We have allowed mere accomplishments, the fringe and lace of life, to draw our attention from those solid and necessary things which a woman must know if her home is to be comfortable, and which a man knows nothing about except that in their results they make him contentedly happy or utterly miserable. ”

“ The ordinary domestic medicine cupboard is too frequently a shelf of some press or dark closet, where all medicines and remedies not in use—poisonous liniments, poisonous mixtures, simples, and so on—are all literally huddled together, with nothing to mark their contents save the stereotyped directions: ‘The liniment for external use,’ or, ‘A teaspoonful three times a day.’ It is not difficult under such circumstances to picture a typical case of what is almost certain sooner or later to occur. ”

“ We taught them many things which they did not need to know, and could not learn thoroughly for want of time—much which almost unfitted them for their probable places in life as working-men’s wives; and we left untaught altogether all the womanly and useful arts of life except sewing. Good management has become rarer and rarer in the homes of town working-men; the thrifty, careful housewives seem as units among scores of careless, bad—because ignorant—mismanagers. ”

“ Mr Redgrave, accustomed to defer to the wishes of his elder sister in most things, submissively seated himself in front of Penelope and prepared to listen accordingly.
‘Lavinia and I have been discussing your improved fortune and prospects. Although your sisters have led a very retired and secluded life, they have some knowledge of human nature, and are quite prepared to learn that their only brother has been the target for every selfish and intriguing woman with whom he has been brought in contact. ”

“ The only safeguard appears to us to be an engagement with some suitable person.’
The aquiline features of Septimus flushed somewhat as he replied: ‘If you mean that I am to sacrifice my liberty when I am best prepared to enjoy it, you will excuse my saying that you are tilting at a windmill. ”

“ No one who has not seen could guess or would believe what the cooking in working-men’s homes too often is, or what waste and extravagance arise out of utter ignorance; and even where the mother has not been laid aside, it has been found that the girl’s knowledge, brought fresh from school, has worked a reformation in the family management. ”

“ If all goes well, there is neither profit nor loss. But it cannot be expected that everything will be perfectly successful; the children will miss a lesson now and then, or some dish will be spoiled. We would wish, therefore, to remind managers that there is another source of income open to them. It is both easier and better to teach cookery and domestic economy together than separately; and every girl who in the cooking class is earning a grant of four shillings, may also earn another four shillings if she passes in domestic economy, without any additional outlay or cost. ”

“ He had resided in Bury Street for some ten years, when his landlady, Mrs Jones, announced that in consequence of her failing strength and increasing years, her daughter Martha was about to resign her position as companion to an old lady at Bristol, and assist in the management of the house in Bury Street. Miss Jones duly arrived, and presented a very agreeable spectacle. A florid-complexioned, black-eyed girl of twenty, very vivacious and energetic, and by no means devoid of education or natural ability. ”

“ The early age at which girls go to work in factories increases the evil; and, till lately, nothing which was taught at school helped to remedy it. Here, too, however, the change has begun, and now, in the Board Schools of London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow, and other large towns, the practical teaching of cookery holds almost as important a place in the education of girls as the teaching of sewing. But the question remains for the managers of voluntary schools: Is cooking worth teaching? ”

“ The forty hours allowed by government are divided into twenty lessons of two hours each, which, taken once a week, can be finished in half a year. The lessons given are found to succeed best if they are alternately demonstration and practice—that is, at one lesson the children watch the teacher, who shows them how to cook any given dishes, carefully explaining the processes and the nature of the food; and at the next lesson the children put what they have learned in practice, and cook the same dishes themselves under the superintendence of the teacher. ”

“ Perhaps for the first time they are learning something that really interests them, and seems a link between home-life and school; they learn to weigh, to measure, to calculate quantities, and they see the use of these things. Let no one imagine that a cookery class is not educational. In the hands of a competent teacher, it is an object lesson, an arithmetic lesson, a general-knowledge lesson, and a lesson in common-sense. Even the personal appearance of the children often improves ”

“ No practice is more common when mothers meet than to talk over their children’s complaints, suggest remedies, and magnify their several experiences, with the result that domestic recipes are lauded, approved, and tried too often in total ignorance either of their suitability or safety. Few mothers are aware of the important fact, that a medicine containing a narcotic or soothing ingredient may cure one{770} infant and kill another of equal strength, age, &c. This varied action of soothing remedies on infants cannot be too well known or too strongly impressed upon mothers. ”

“ That there are many to be taught and much to be learned, we may gather from a glance at the questions asked on such subjects in our principal ladies’ papers; where but the other day we find a newly married lady wishing to know if, on an income of five hundred pounds a year, without house-rent, she can keep a butler, a cook-housekeeper, a housemaid, a carriage and pair of horses, and a pony and cart! ”

“ He would certainly treasure up the advice of his sister as to the choice of a wife. So it was with more than his customary urbanity that Septimus replied: ‘An old man such as I am would have been but a poor acquisition, Miss Fraser.’
Blanche peered with an expression of mock gravity into the gray eyes of Septimus. ‘An old man! Have you never heard of the old saying?—A man is as old as he feels, a woman as old as she looks. How old do you feel, Mr Redgrave?’
‘I feel almost a boy, Miss Fraser, when in your society ”

“ No one who has seen how well these and many other dishes are cooked by the children entirely without assistance at their practical examination—no one who has heard how well and intelligently they answer questions on the subject, can doubt that cooking can be taught successfully in our schools. ”

“ Lastly, never accumulate powerful remedies, in the belief that they may be required on some future occasion. It is highly probable that many of our readers will have a family medicine chest in which there is a place for every bottle, and in which every bottle must be in its place, and the whole in beautiful order. This is the very idea for a medicine cupboard—not only a place for everything, and everything in its place, but all plainly and correctly marked. As a rule, however, nothing can be further from the reality than such a picture. ”

“ A bottle or cup is standing on a table or in a cupboard, and under the impression that it contains beer or spirits, tea or coffee, or even pure water, some one quaffs the contents, and only finds when it is probably too late that he has drunk some virulent poison. ”

“ In Liverpool, the Education Council offered to fit up six classrooms in voluntary schools as centres at which several neighbouring schools could attend; but as many poor schools are without such benevolent friends, the Northern Union of Schools of Cookery has petitioned the Science and Art Department to give grants for this purpose.
The teacher’s salary, as already mentioned, is about five pounds, with a varying sum in addition for travelling expenses. The average cost of the food to be cooked is about thirty-seven shillings for the whole course. ”

“ In ‘my salad days’ I was a striking example of that class of young men who are unfortunately weighted with an extra crop of wild-oats to dispose of ere they are transformed into conventional, steady-going, tax-paying members of the community. ”

“ A very moderate-sized classroom is large enough; and tables can be formed of boards on tressels or on the backs of desks. Many classrooms already contain a range large enough for all purposes; but if not, one can be fitted up at a cost of three pounds, or a portable stove can be had for thirty shillings. The utensils are few and simple; but of course the first cost of them is considerable—about five pounds. [1] A teacher is supplied by any of the principal training Schools of Cookery for a fee of five pounds for twenty lessons and her travelling expenses. ”

“ Never put any poison, such as carbolic acid, oxalic acid, or any other of the stronger acids into beer-bottles, jugs, cups, or other vessels which both children and adults are apt to associate in their minds with substances not in themselves dangerous. ”

“ Shall we take a stroll on the lawn, as we did before? There seems to be no one about.’
‘That will do very nicely. I will just fetch my sunshade and then join you.’ Which she accordingly did. ‘You may recollect, Mr Etheridge, that one portion of our conversation this morning had reference to Madame De Vigne?’ began her ladyship in her most confidential manner. ”

“ There is a lady in this house who entertains strong feelings of regard for you. She is young, handsome, and accomplished. You do not require money in a wife; but the lady we allude to is not by any means a beggar. ”

“ One is very apt to say, ‘How stupid!’ on reading such cases, and yet one of the earliest experiences of the writer was in connection with a mistake in every respect resembling this, and it well illustrates how such mistakes may be made by intelligent if not even educated men—men trained to exercise eyes, nose, and mouth—without their being detected until too late. ”

“ They are taught all the simple processes of cooking, and the reason in any given case for using one in preference to another. They are furnished with printed recipes for each dish they cook; they are taught—and this is most important—to clean properly and to put away all the utensils they use. They are questioned as they proceed, to see that they understand what they are doing; and at the end of the course, they go through both a verbal and a practical examination; and certificates are awarded by the School of Cookery, independent of examinations by Her Majesty’s inspector. ”

“ For example, there is a very great difference, as a rule, in the agents employed by men and by women to effect suicide. A class of poisons under the generic name of vermin-killers, but which in the majority of instances are merely arsenic or strychnine disguised, have been the agents used by seventeen females and only seven males. The opium preparations, on the other hand, very nearly reverse these proportions, having been used by twenty males and only twelve females. Carbolic acid, again, has been used by thirteen females and only six males ”

“ If it be true that education is the work of{776} drawing out the mental powers of children so as to fit them thoroughly for their work in life, then we certainly for a time overshot our mark in elementary schools, so far as the girls were concerned. ”

“ To meet these expenses, there are the following sources of income: The government grant of four shillings a head for fifteen girls, £3; extra pence paid by the children for their cooking lessons, twopence each for twenty lessons, £2, 10s. This payment cannot be enforced; but it is found that in most cases, even among the poorest, it is willingly paid, as the parents value the lessons. Sale of food cooked, at cost price, £1, 17s.—Total, seven guineas.
It may be mentioned that the food sells more readily among the very poor children than among those who are better off. ”