American’ Association. 37 
industrial cooking schools in connection with the public 
schools. 
Prof. E. J. James, of the University of Pennsylvania, 
thought the question of economy in food supply of funda- 
mental importance to the welfare of the country. It was 
= 
extremely unfortunate, he said, that some writers have © 
accompanied their statements with remarks that have made 
the working classes suspect that cheap food means low 
wages,and that expensive diet means high wages. It does not. 
This is at bottom, a social question, and if it is not wisely 
treated, the result of advance in science may redound to the 
benefit of the few and possible detriment to the many, 
Every new food added to the list of those regularly consumed. 
tends to diminish the demand for the staple article, and, 
consequently, tends to lessen the cost of living. 
Taking all Professor Atwater’s papers together, as pub- 
lished in consecutive numbers of the Century, I gather that 
his views are broader than might seem from the above 
account; viewing the papers, however, as read at the 
Association meeting, they suggest to me a number of con- 
siderations worthy of more attention than I shall be able to 
give them on this occasion. One thing seems clear—that 
the food question, like so many others, is complicated by 
false views as to the meaning and purpose of human 
existence. People spend money for what is not bread, in 
both a literal and a figurative sense. The American work- 
man wishes to appear, according to these witnesses, ‘‘ better 
off” than he is. 
Mrs. Richards’ remarks are full of suggestiveness. Even 
from the discussion before the Association, it becomes very 
plain that the food question has other aspects than the 
economic, the chemical or the physiological. ‘To say, as 
Prof. EB. J. James does, that “this is at bottom a social 
question,” is placing it on far too narrow a basis. Not to 
go beyond the papers and the discussion evoked, it appears 
that the subject has chemical, physiological, economic and 
moral aspects, at least, ‘Tho ill-fed and the over-fed human 
being are alike liable, not only to physical, but to mental 
and moral disturbance. If the relations between mind and 
