422 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Brisgau, has also published sorae works on 

 the inhabitants of the Lake of Constance. 



Family - Schools of Donsekceping. — A 



writer in the "Pall Mall Gazette" who has 

 herself been trained in that way proposes, as 

 a means of putting an end to the troubles 

 about poor servants and bad housekeeping, 

 that the German plan be adopted of send- 

 ing every young girl after she has finished 

 her school education, and before she is " out," 

 to learn housekeeping. This every girl in 

 Germany does, be she the daughter of no- 

 bleman, officer, or small official. She goes 

 direct from school into a family correspond- 

 ing with her station in life. Those who are 

 rich go where they arc paid highly, and are 

 in " good family," so that they arc enabled 

 to live well and have good cooking and great 

 variety. No one is taken into one of these 

 establishments for less than a year, so tha* 

 every month a new branch is learned — one 

 month the preserving of fruit in season, the 

 next laying-in of apples and vegetables for 

 winter use, preserving of eggs and butter, 

 etc. These girls are taught everything, from 

 washing up dishes, sweeping and polishing 

 the floors, clear-starching and ironing, dust- 

 ing and cleaning ornaments, cooking, lay- 

 ing the table, waiting, polishing the silver 

 and glass up, to decorating the table with 

 flowers and fruit. Great is the ambition of 

 the pupil to hear that her taste and man- 

 agement are the best. Combined with these 

 duties are those of keeping the household 

 linen in repair and learning plain sewing. 

 Thus the young girl gets experience in house- 

 hold affairs. Though the pupils have to 

 learn everything, servants arc kept in these 

 establishments, and in their turn are taught 

 by the advanced pupils, who have learned 

 from the mother of the family. This ac- 

 counts for the excellent housekeeping in 

 Germany, where comfort is combined with 

 economy and the pleasure of having every- 

 thing precise and clean. The labors of the 

 day are over at midday, that being the din- 

 ner-time, when everybody is at liberty for 

 study, needlework, or amusement till time 

 for preparing for supper. There are many 

 families in England who can not afford to 

 keep servants enough to do well all that has 

 to be done. In these families they have to 

 train servants, not being able to afford to 



keep trained ones. 'Wliynot, in these cases, 

 train young ladies (who would al>o be com- 

 panions to the daughters) ? They might 

 pay something for the instruction, and so 

 put something into the teachers' pocket, 

 while they would also work for her, and at 

 the same time reap informction, which they 

 could again impart, and so train good serv- 

 ants, who are at present so hard to get. Mis- 

 tresses are imable to teach, never having 

 been taught themselves. Thus they are de- 

 pendent on servants ; for when they find 

 fault they are unable, either in cooking or 

 other matters, to point out the mistake or 

 show the correct way. Servants, knowing this 

 fact, arc independent and rule the house, and 

 the " mistresses " must submit. The Ger- 

 man system of living with a family and learn- 

 ing by experience how to manage a house 

 is far better than either cooking-schools or 

 lectures on the subject, as a greater variety 

 of things are learned, and they are done in 

 a more refined and economical way. 



" Rages " in Surgery. — A part of the 

 Presidential address of M. Ycrneuil at the 

 recent meeting of the French Association 

 consisted in a spirited and somewhat sar- 

 castic protest against the prevalence of fash- 

 ions, or " rages," as they arc colloquially 

 termed, in surgery. "When he began his 

 career, tenotomy was the rage, and tendons, 

 ligaments, and muscles were divided subcu- 

 taneously in all parts of the body. A little 

 later " resecomania" flourished, especially 

 in Germany and England, so that some sur- 

 geons reckoned their resections by the hun- 

 dred. Nowadays, when a specialist intro- 

 duces an operation all specialists follow suit, 

 but with a variation in the shape of the new 

 instrument, so that, " if a museum of operat- 

 ive medicine were founded, immense cases 

 would be necessary to exhibit all the litho- 

 tomes, urethrotomes,hystcrotomes,and other 

 ' tomes,' comprising small unnamed instru- 

 ments, intended, I believe, to divide stric- 

 tures of the nasal duct — strictures which, 

 be it said without bitterness, hardly ever 

 exist, or arc in places where they have no 

 need of being divided when they do exist." 

 Gynrecology and ophthalmology compete for 

 honors in this department, and . the palm 

 must be given to the former, for, apart from 

 cauterizations, etc., of the cervix, it has giv- 



