Missouri Housekeepers' Conference Association. 461 



taken sufficiently into account. Another teacher may divide her 

 dishes according to food principles, starting usually with the most 

 complex, the proteid, still using the recipe, and not using the beauti- 

 ful opportunity of reasoning from step to step, with the deduction 

 of general principles to take the place of the individual recipe. 

 Lastly, many of the schools which consider themselves most scien- 

 tific have made the outside science which they have brought in, the 

 basis of their classification, without much regard to the proper 

 relation of the cooking subject-matter itself. We claim that this 

 is unscientific cooking, in that it simply serves to demonstrate some 

 principles of the other sciences in any order in which they may have 

 been brought together and at the end the student has no connected 

 idea of the principles involved in the cooking subject-matter. That 

 work of this kind is of value, must be acknowledged, but it should 

 be gotten through correlation with, or as examples in the other 

 science classes, and not serve as basis of classification for the cook- 

 ing work. In this way we can distinguish between the course when 

 given for its own value, and when it is given simply to strengthen 

 or apply the principles of another science. In the first case it is a 

 science, in the second, an applied science. 



In the scientific method we have the material organized upon 

 the basis of food principles, commencing with the 'simplest — the 

 carbohydrates. Through a study of the chemistry and plant physi- 

 ology of these substances in their pure forms, the student is enabled 

 after a few experiments to cook these in their simplest combina- 

 tions, formulating their own rules and recipes. In the mastery 

 of any subject general principles must be grasped, and unless the 

 specific types taken are taught in such a way as to bring out the 

 general principles underlying the subject is not worthy of being 

 called a science, and unless the principles deduced belong to the 

 cooking science, we are, in .cooking, teaching an applied and not a 

 true science. 



The goal of instruction, according to Dr. Frank McMurray (in 

 his Method of the Recitation), is the general notion. Individual 

 notions are important, in that they form the foundation for the 

 general notion, but if from the individual notions we do not gen- 

 eralize, a large part of the value is lost. Let us see the value of 

 this generalization in our own work. 



Some two dozen or more cream soups are possible. Shall we 

 cook each by an individual rule or recipe and cling carefully to it 

 as most young cooks do? How many have you heard say, "I have 

 a good recipe for cream or corn soup, but none for cream of celery?" 



