WOMAN AND HOME SCIENCE. 39 



the education of children, and the beautiful arts. A few books, 

 however, are of comparatively little avail, without systematic 

 education and laboratory practice. Few have the genius to 

 educate themselves. 



The common objection to everything of the kind is, that 

 practical knowledge is enough, without book knowledge. Some 

 one may say : " All this science is stuff; my grandmother did 

 not know orcygen from stear'ino ; she did not know ' sal soda ' 

 from ' sal ammonium,' or any other Sally ; but she could cook 

 such doughnuts as you never saw." A sufficient answer to the 

 excessively practical "people is the instance of the doctor who 

 killed a fever patient with codfish, because another fever patient 

 had secretly partaken of the same and recovered. It was a very 

 practical inference he drew. Of course, science alone will not 

 make a housekeeper. It will not make a physician. The 

 medical student needs to practise with an old expert, as well as 

 to attend lectures and read books. 



Another objection is, that much of this science is but the 

 learning of hard names for common things. It may lio said, 

 why not know pearlash and saleratus simply as such, not as 

 carbonate and bicarbonate of potash ? The answer i.s that 

 potash is a powerful alkali ; it must be injurious in considerable 

 quantities; and the same, to a less degree, is true of soda. If 

 the right names were used, what lady would have the face to 

 say to her guests : " Shall I help you to some potash bread or 

 potash cakes ? " Scientific knowledge is a knowledge of things 

 and their action. 



First, therefore, a scientific in-door agriculture would save 

 us from many hurtful practices. The use of fine flour, from 

 which the phosphates have been removed by bolting, is another 

 example. 



Secondly. Scientific knowledge would influence us to carry 

 out the floating knowledge we already have. We do no feel a 

 truth and act upon it, till we thoroughly know it. We know, 

 for instance, that the effluvium rising from the waste-pipe of the 

 kitchen sink is noxious, and so likewise when the sink-washings 

 discharge into the open air near a house ; we half know that all 

 this can be remedied by a closed drain and closed cesspool, with 

 a pipe leading from the drain to a chimney, whereby all foul air 

 is removed, the kitchen admirably ventilated, and cholera sent 



