HOUSEHOLD ARTS AT THE WORLD'S FAIR. 811 



wet by dipping into a moat containing water, and the constant 

 evaporation from the cloth produces the cooling action of the ap- 

 paratus. One of the schoolrooms in the Children's Building is a 

 " Kitchen Garden," in which housework lessons with toys are given 

 to very young girls. Its aim, as stated on its placards, is " to take 

 the drudgery out of so-called menial work and elevate the home 

 duties of women by inspiring the pupils with the right way of 

 doing things at an age when life-long impressions and habits are 

 formed." The lessons include waiting on the door, passing a tray, 

 bedmaking, and a broom drill. There is an advanced course 

 for older girls which includes cooking and laundry work. The 

 originator of the Kitchen Garden is Miss Emily Huntington, of 

 New York, who may be consulted daily upon the organization of 

 industrial classes for girls. 



Domestic economy has not been omitted from the list of con- 

 gresses held in connection with the fair. Its congress will be 

 held in the second week of October, under the direction of the 

 Woman's Committee on Household Economics, in the Woman's 

 Branch of the World's Congress Auxiliary. This committee has 

 also been charged with the duty of presenting its subject in the 

 agricultural, labor, sanitary, and other congresses. Unfortunately, 

 more than half the usefulness of all the congresses has been thrown 

 away by holding them seven miles from the center of attraction 

 and in noisy surroundings. 



After everything relating to household management has been 

 sought out, the visitor can not resist the conviction that the 

 exhibits at the Columbian Exposition fall very far short of what 

 they might have been and should have been in justice to the im- 

 portance of the subject. Two of the excellent exhibits of cooking 

 processes are placed in an out-of-the-way spot. Few products of 

 home cookery are shown, and nothing except preserves. Domestic 

 laundry operations are not illustrated at all ; laundered articles 

 are sent from schools in England and Germany, but nothing from 

 any American school, and no American woman has shown her 

 skill in washing flannels without their shrinking, colored goods 

 and embroideries without the colors running, or in putting a gloss 

 upon starched linens. In needlework the ornamental has buried 

 the practical out of sight. The difference between the right and 

 the wrong way of making a bed, of sweeping and dusting a room, 

 of cleaning windows and woodwork, and of setting and decorating 

 a table, might all have been illustrated to the great profit of many 

 thousands of visitors. The difficulties in the way of such ex- 

 hibits are no greater than those that have been overcome in other 

 cases. According to the census, more than half the men of the 

 United States engaged in gainful occupations are occupied with 

 agriculture; and this industry is adequately represented in its 



