39^ 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



way how many new subjects and ques- 

 tions there are upon which women re- 

 quire to be trained in order to make 

 them competent and skillful administra- 

 tors of home affairs. Mrs. Bate shows 

 conclusively that science has exactly 

 the same office to perform in guiding 

 domestic art that it has had to perform 

 in giving efficiency to all the other arts, 

 and that it will confer the same interest 

 and dignity upon household affairs that 

 it has already conferred upon other de- 

 partments of acti\aty. She well ob- 

 serves that in gaining tlie knowledge 

 necessary to make the home a sanita- 

 rium—the house of health — educated 

 housekeepers would do more to eman- 

 cipate the world from fleshly ills than 

 doctors have ever done or ever can do. 

 Mrs. Bate makes an important point 

 in showing that the ignorance of wom- 

 en is a fatal hindrance to the introduc- 

 tion of many improvements by which 

 domestic operations could be greatly 

 facilitated, if only housekeepers knew 

 enough to make them available. An 

 illustration of this is just now at hand. 

 The use of gas-stoves for cooking is 

 one of the most important ameliora- 

 tions that have been conferred upon the 

 kitchen in a long time ; but, as that 

 realm is given over to tradition and 

 blind habit, but little advantage has 

 been taken of the improvement. Gas- 

 stock holders are losing their sleep for 

 fear Edison is going to destroy their 

 business, but, if the benefits to be gained 

 by the consumption of gas in cooking 

 were generally understood, there would 

 be but little occasion to fear from a 

 diminished consumption of the article. 

 A lady trained in the South Kensington 

 Cooking-School, and who has taught in 

 the Culinary College of Edinburgh, has 

 recently come to this country and giv- 

 en a course of demonstrative lessons in 

 cookery in New York. Her mode of 

 working has been a sort of new reve- 

 lation to the large class of ladies wliich 

 has attended ber instructions. Cook- 

 ing has liitherto been associated with 



dingy kitchens and fiery ranges that 

 evoked the free perspiration of the at- 

 tendant ; but Miss Dods uses a gas- 

 stove, and does her work so neatly that 

 it might be carried on in a parlor. In 

 the dozen lessons she gave, scores of 

 dishes of all kinds were prepared rapid- 

 ly by the use of gas, and that they were 

 well made was suflQciently evinced by 

 the eagerness of the ladies to purchase 

 them at tlie close of each lecture. To 

 a curious inquirer she said, that in her 

 jjractical demonstrations she had cooked 

 by gas alone for years in preparing hun- 

 dreds of dishes of a great variety in 

 teaching. This is but one example, of 

 which many might be cited, showing 

 how people suffer in their domestic life 

 because women are not properly in- 

 structed in the principles of practical 

 household art, and in the resources that 

 might be commanded for its improve- 

 ment. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



The Bible of To-day : A Course of Lect- 

 ures by Rev. John W. Chadwick. 

 New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 

 304. Price, $1.50. 



On a subject of profound interest 

 throughout Christendom, and upon which 

 there is great discordance of opinion, cou- 

 pled with intense feeling, Mr. Chad wick has 

 produced an independent and instructive 

 work, which is at the same time both rev- 

 erent and rational. 



The more liberal and catholic spirit of 

 modern inquiry is undoubtedly due to the 

 influence of science, which reaches far be- 

 yond the field of physical experiment. The 

 attacks upon the Bible by the skeptics of 

 the last century were made in the spirit of 

 the age, which was polemical and disputa- 

 tious, as it had been from the middle ages. 

 Discussion was filled with the irritations, 

 acerbities, bitterness, and the rancors of 

 personal controversy. The Bible was argued 

 over much like a party at the bar of our 

 courts by the lawyers, one of whom wishes 

 to set him free and the other to get him 

 hanged. The Bible was attacked, as it was 



