a poor apple-woman in New York invented the paper strings now in 

 common use. The rightly educated woman could at least appreciate 

 and apply aU good inventions, and reject the many foohsh ones 

 hawked about the coiintry. She would have the mechanical know- 

 ledge, too, necessar}'^ to keep all household machinery in good order, 

 and 80 be saved from much vexation. 



But some one may say, the difficulty is not so much in needed 

 facilities, as in the slavish nature of the work. This leads me to 

 remark in the next place, that home science would dignify and in- 

 spirit, yes, glorify, the drudgery of household toil. Chemistry is 

 kitchen work, dish-work and dish-washing ; yet, not for a moment 

 does the chemist feel degraded or weary. The science transmutes 

 the glass to crystal, the iron to gold, the labor to lofty play. The 

 Emperor of Brazil has his laboratory, where he does this chemical 

 work. And what is all kitchen work but chemistry ? 



A thing of science, like " a thing of beauty, is a joy forever." A 

 drop of water falls on the hot stove. The good housewife, who is 

 an unthinking drudge, does not notice it, or she only says to her- 

 self — " La, sakes ! how hot that stove is ! " The drop, still round, 

 rOUs along the stove and dances, till it roUs off. "Why did it not 

 change to vapor at once ? Because the heat converts its outer par- 

 ticles into a cusliiou of steam, on which it rests. How is that? 

 Each outside particle of water, changed to steam, flies off with such 

 energy that its recoil holds up the drop. Let it roll to a part of 

 the stove less hot ; it sinks down flat and is wholly transformed to 

 vapor. This drop suggests a thousand wonders, and the entire 

 amazing theory of heat, as recently demonstrated by men of science. 



Hence, further, if our housewife, in her kitchen laboratory, has a 

 devout spirit, she is exalted by continual suggestions of the Great 

 Divine Cause. As quaint George Herbert wrote two hundred years 

 ago: 



" A servant, with this clause, 



Makes drudgery divine : 

 Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws, 

 Makes that, and th' action, line." 



And the new discoveries of science would ever freshen the eter- 

 nal freshness of scientific work. lu beets, in tea and coffee, the 

 comparatively new metal. Rubidium, has been detected by that 

 marvellous spectrum analysis which shows us the metals that exist 

 in the sun, and in the far-off" fixed stars — even detects nitrogen in a 

 comet and sodium in a shooting star. 80, also, the recent doctrine 



