626 View of the Progress of Gardening, 



been the case in the neighbourhood of London. We attribute 

 the change to the influence of school education on the rising 

 generation, and the withdrawal by death of many of the worst 

 part of society, thrown loose from the army and navy after the 

 general peace. The comparative poverty, also, of the higher 

 classes, by obliging them to be more economical in their do- 

 mestic concerns, has diminished, in some degree, the corruption 

 of the class called gentlemen's servants, who, of all persons in the 

 same rank of life, seem to have least sympathy with others either 

 above or below them. The general taste for reading which at 

 present prevails among the rising generation, and which has 

 been chiefly brought about by the Sunday schools and by cheap 

 publications, promises such an amelioration of the great mass or 

 poorer class of society, as will in time equalise it, in all essential 

 particulars, with those who are now considered the higher and 

 middling classes- The greatest defect in the class of which we 

 are now speaking, as it appears to us, lies in the education of 

 the females, which is confined to a little reading and writing, 

 instead of being extended to clothes-making and working of dif- 

 ferent kinds, and more especially to cookery. In this respect, 

 as will appear by Mrs. Austin's translation of Cousin's work On 

 the State of Educatio7i in Prussia, the German women generally 

 have greatly the advantage over those of England. The Bri- 

 tish gardener may satisfy himself on this subject, by questioning 

 any of the German, French, or Dutch gardeners, now work- 

 ing as journeymen in this country. A British gardener, though 

 he is surrounded with the most excellent vegetables which Eu- 

 rope produces, and has liberty, where they are not scarce, to 

 supply his own table from them, yet, unless he has married a 

 woman who has been brought up a cook, and who understands 

 at least a little of French cookery, cannot get one of those savoury 

 stews and compounds which are made by gardeners' wives on 

 the Continent, at a tithe of the expense that is spent here in the 

 fuel and material for dishes far less agreeable and wholesome. 

 It is quite a mistake to suppose French cookery expensive : it 

 is, in fact, the most economical cookery in the whole world, 

 since its leading principles are, to get the greatest possible quan- 

 tity of nourishment out of a given quantity of food, with the 

 least possible quantity of fuel, and to waste nothing. With a 

 view to the improvement of gardeners in this particular, we con- 

 template giving a series of papers on the subject of Cookery, and 

 especially on Vegetable Cookery, in our succeeding volume. 



The attention which has of late been paid by the legislature to 

 the subject of national education induces us to hope that, at no 

 distant period, this important and all-powerful source of domestic 

 improvement will be established on sound and permanent prin- 

 ciples. The first step to the establishment of national schools 



