Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 207 



schools were intended to train the boys and girls to be ladies and 

 gentlemen, cultured in arts and science. The new conception is 

 that the schools should prepare the boys and girls to be useful, 

 capable citizens, equipped to take a hand in the practical affairs of 

 life. 



TEACHING COOKING IN THE FRUITVILLE RURAL SCHOOL. 



(Miss Helen Swift, Fruitville, Mo.) 



It is no longer necessary to argue about the necessity for 

 teaching cooking in our schools. We have only to consider ways 

 and means. Here is how we have tried to solve the question at 

 Fruitville. Our school is a typical one-room building with four 

 windows on each side, a door in front directly opposite the flue. 

 Teachers who have struggled with the arrangement of such a room 

 will realize the difficulty of adding a kitchen equipment to its fur- 

 nishings, especially since it was deemed advisable to do most of 

 our work with a wood stove. This problem we solved by pitching 

 a 12x14 tent just across the platform in front of the schoolhouse. 

 This tent we have arranged as a real kitchen, with a stove, table 

 and cupboard. With the exception of these three articles our 

 equipment cost less than fifteen dollars. It contains nothing that 

 might not be found in an ordinary farm kitchen. Perhaps it would 

 seem meager to some city teachers, but if they had watched the 

 children's interest in and surprised admiration of such articles as 

 the toaster, egg beaters and vegetable press, they would know that 

 there is a great opportunity with very simple equipment. All our 

 equipment, including the tent, we owe to the generosity of Col. 

 Jay L. Torrey, president of the Missouri State Immigration Society, 

 whose interest in the State of Missouri as a whole, and in the boys 

 and girls in particular, is second to none. 



Perhaps the hardest problem after that of equipment is that 

 of securing the time. I have solved that in this way: We follow 

 the program in the State course of study, omitting second grade 

 reading and spelling after the morning recess, and combining third 

 and fourth grade arithmetic, thus saving twenty minutes. 



The fire in the cook stove is laid before school, lighted at recess 

 and fed by one of the younger boys, who finds in this activity a 

 reward for well-studied lessons. At 11:40 the pupils who are re- 

 sponsible for the preparation of that day's menu go to the kitchen. 



