TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 827 



* We Eiiglisli are proud of our homes. We sing songs about them, we write 

 on them; in fact, we are very justly proud of our homes. Has it ever entered 

 your minds that home to the great majority in a very large degree, and to all in 

 some degree, is hut a loftier name for cookery ? In a cottage good cookery means 

 economy, luxur}', health, comfort, love. . . . Cookery to the vast majority of man- 

 kind means home, and when the weary worker comes hack from work wanting to 

 refit, cookery alone can turn him out fit for work again. From this point of view 

 home is cookery.' 



Cookery is certainly a subject of which those in charge of education have not 

 yet in any way discerned the importance. Our cooks are inferior and wasteful 

 simply because they fail to exercise sufficient imaginative power. If we wish to 

 make good cooks of our girls, we must teach them to think for themselves and to 

 be imaginative — to make a scientific use of their imagination ; they will then come 

 to see that the subject is a vastly interesting one, full of opportunity for research. 

 The kitchen, of all places, is the one, in fact, in which the heuristic method should 

 most flourish. 



Coidd we find tongues in trees we should doubtless find them eloquent on the 

 subject of food supply and far more delicate in their tastes than any mortals. 

 But how many of us, looking at a green leaf, can in any way call ( o mind the 

 wonderful mechanism which enables the plant to secure the main bulk of its solid 

 substance from the fleeting stores in the circumambient atmosphere ; or the 

 manner in which it is dependent on light ; or its mineral needs ; or its great need 

 of water and its wonderful transpiratory activity ? And yet the chief industry 

 of the world is agi-iculture — the feeding and tending of plants. At least those 

 who lead a rural life should have their imagination excited on such subjects at 

 school : it is even possible that much of the asserted dulness of a country life 

 might pass away if an interest in plant activity were properly cultivated. And 

 schoolmasters might even find comfort in the reflection that, as Messrs. Brown 

 and Escombe have recently shown, the translocation of the material first formed 

 in the leaves, metabolism and growth are become so intimately correlated that the 

 perfect working of the entire plant is only possible in an atmosphere containing 

 the normal amount of three parts of carbon dioxide per ten thousand ; they might 

 recognise in the plant an organism after their own heart, with ripened conserva- 

 tive instincts and unwilling to accept any other than the limited diet long favoured 

 by the craft. 



In these days not only the obvious but also the microscopic forms of life 

 claim attention: it is imperative that all should be at least aware of their 

 existence and mindful of the deadly power that some of them exercise. All should 

 be able to read with intelligence the wonderful story of the beneficent labours of 

 the great Pasteur — a true saviour of mankind — and appreciate their value. The 

 lessons of sanitary science will never be properly brought home to us and heeded 

 in daily life until a more direct intimacy with micro-organisms is encouraged at 

 school. 



And whether or no there be ' good in everything,' children must at least be 

 encouraged to seek it : to use their eyes always and to reflect on what they see. 

 A proper use will be made of leisure and of holidays when they are so trained ; 

 even ' Dajs in the Country ' will then be days of enjoyment and peace for all, 

 never of mere vacuous wanderings, let alone of wanton destruction, and will leave 

 no memories of broken glass and waste paper behind them. And in the 

 end, the national drink bill may be considerably diminished if Shakespeare's words 

 come to have some slight meaning for all. 



Let us consider what we can do to further this most desirable end. Section L 

 is in advance of the times, being concerned with a non-existent science — the Science 

 of Education. The science will come into existence only when a rational theory 

 of education is developed and applied ; but it is clearly on the very eve of coming 

 into existence, otherwise the Section could not have been established ; and we may 

 contribute much to its development. 



Surely, the primary article of our creed will be that — as Thring has said — * the 



