EDITOR'S TABLE. 



621 



unpalatable, unhealthful and monoto- 

 nous cookery. Considering our re- 

 sources, and the vaunted education and 

 intelligence of American women, this 

 reproach is just. Our kitchens are, in 

 fact, almost abandoned to the control 

 of low Irish, stupid negroes, and raw 

 servile menials that pour in upon us 

 from various foreign countries. And, 

 what is worse, there is a general acqui- 

 escence in this state of things, as if it 

 were something fated, and relief from 

 it hopeless and impossible. We profess 

 to believe in the potency of education, 

 and are applying it to all other inter- 

 ests and industries excepting only that 

 fundamental art of the preparation 

 and use of food to sustain life which 

 involves more of economy, enjoyment, 

 health, spirits, and the power of effec- 

 tive labor, than any other subject that 

 is formally studied in the schools. We 

 abound in female seminaries and female 

 colleges, and high-schools, and normal 

 schools, supported by burdensome tax- 

 es, in which everything under heaven is 

 studied except that practical art which 

 is a daily and vital necessity in all the 

 households of the land. 



Acquiescence in this state of things 

 as something permanent and irremedi- 

 able is no longer possible. If, as Rum- 

 ford says, cookery is an art of civilized 

 nations, it must improve with the ad- 

 vance of civilization. It is undoubtedly 

 the most backward of all the arts, and 

 various causes conspire to its continued 

 neglect. But, whatever the difficulties 

 to be overcome, the time has arrived 

 when the advance of intelligence and 

 the spirit of improvement must invade 

 that last stronghold of traditional stu- 

 pidity, the kitchen. Nor are the diffi- 

 culties of doing this by any means so 

 great as is commonly supposed ; they will 

 vanish as soon as the task of alleviation 

 and amendment is earnestly undertaken. 

 As soon as thought and cultivation are 

 brought to bear upon the domestic op- 

 erations of the kitchen, they will be 

 elevated in the common respect, and a 

 most formidable impediment will thus 



be removed. American women have 

 been driven out of the kitchen because 

 all its associations are degrading, and 

 they demand education as a preparation 

 for all those other activities to which 

 educations leads. When the art of 

 cookery becomes a matter of intelli- 

 gent study, so that its practice will no 

 longer be a badge of debasement and 

 humiliation, occupation will be sought 

 and honored in this field as elsewhere. 

 The establishment of cooking-schools 

 is, therefore, in the direct line of our 

 domestic amelioration and emancipa- 

 tion. They are already, as we have 

 said, established, and, considering the 

 embarrassments of an initial movement 

 of this kind, are in most successful op- 

 eration. Though at present narrow 

 in their scope, they will develop and 

 widen so as to afford a training in the 

 broader field of general household ac- 

 tivity ; but we are well content with 

 what has been already gained. The 

 South Kensington Cooking-School, in 

 London, is a normal school for training 

 teachers to go out and take charge of 

 other schools in different parts of the 

 country. How successful this institu- 

 tion has been may be inferred from the 

 fact that it has already given us the 

 best practical cook-book that we now 

 have. We call attention to the notice 

 of this work in the following pages, 

 from which the reader will gather some 

 interesting information as to what has 

 been accomplished on the other side of 

 the Atlantic in relation to this impor- 

 tant subject, and which will afford im- 

 portant hints for carrying out a similar 

 work in the United States. 



SCIENCE IN RELATION TO TEACHING. 



Of all the applications of science to 

 the practical arts, there is none that can 

 for a moment bear comparison with its 

 application to the art of teaching. Sci- 

 entific education, as currently under- 

 stood, refers to something of greatly 

 inferior importance : it means instruc- 



