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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



law. His case, in a word, is this : By 

 a satisfactory arrangement contributors 

 to the " International Scientific Series " 

 are liberally paid by the English pub- 

 lisher, and then fairly paid again by 

 the American publisher what more is 

 wanted ? The answer, of course, is very 

 simple : There is wanted legal protec- 

 tion to the property. The American 

 publishers concede that there is a prop- 

 erty-value in the books they reissue, for 

 which they are willing to pay under a 

 voluntary contract; but how does that 

 proceeding absolve the United States 

 Government from the duty of protect- 

 ing tbat property as it protects other 

 property? Reasonable men will see 

 that the convention of publishers in 

 different countries, to carry out such a 

 project, is but a weighty testimony to 

 the just claims of authors which it is 

 the duty and office of government to 

 sustain and enforce by the proper legis- 

 lation. It is the one great duty of gov- 

 ernment to protect the rights of its citi- 

 zens, and prominent among these is the 

 right of property. All civilized coun- 

 tries recognize the right of property in 

 books, and there have been attempts to 

 make this recognition international, that 

 is, to induce nations to extend their 

 morality beyond their geographical bor- 

 ders. In the absence of any such ar- 

 rangement, a few parties agree that they 

 will voluntarily recognize the rights of 

 intellectual property, and the very do- 

 ing of this is to be made a new excuse 

 for neglecting to enforce the funda- 

 mental obligations of justice. 



COOKERY AND EDUCATION. 



It was a suggestive remark of Count 

 Rumford tbat "the number of inhabi- 

 tants who may be supported in any 

 country upon its internal produce de- 

 pends about as much upon the state of 

 the art of cookery as upon that of agri- 

 culture ; but, if cookery be of so much 

 importance, it ought certainly to be 

 studied with the greatest care. Cook- 



ery and agriculture are arts of civilized 

 nations ; savages understand neither of 

 them." 



There is a great deal of important 

 truth wrapped up in this passage, of 

 vital interest to society in general and 

 to individual welfare, but which it has 

 taken a hundred years to appreciate so 

 fully that any considerable number of 

 people can begin to cooperate in re- 

 ducing it to practice. But, if what 

 Rumford said is true, if the scale of 

 population as well as the comfort and 

 health of the people depends to such 

 a degree upon the art of cookery, what 

 are all the issues of politics over which 

 men are fighting with such desperation 

 in comparison with the systematic im- 

 provement of the culinary art? How 

 greatly the public weal is dependent 

 upon the condition of agriculture be- 

 gins now to be widely understood, and 

 since the time of Rumford great prog- 

 ress has been made in its scientific 

 study through the establishment of 

 special schools and colleges for the pur- 

 pose. Agricultural education is now a. 

 recognized branch of popular culture 

 which is destined to be greatly devel- 

 oped and extended in the future. The 

 next great step must be to do the same 

 thing for the art of cookery; and the 

 friends of genuine social improvement 

 may congratulate themselves that the 

 progress of education is beginning to 

 take effect upon this important depart- 

 ment of domestic life. Cooking-schools 

 are springing up in many places in this 

 country and in England, and the Eng- 

 lish are taking the lead in organizing 

 them as a part of their national and 

 common school system. 



Of the importance, the imperative 

 necessity of this movement, there can- 

 not be the slightest question. Our 

 kitchens, as is perfectly notorious, are 

 the fortified intrenchments of igno- 

 rance, prejudice, irrational habits, rule- 

 of-thumb, and mental vacuity, and the 

 consequence is that the Americans are 

 liable to the reproach of suffering be- 

 yond any other people from wasteful, 



