February, 1906 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS [11 
Preparing Dinner 
OOKING, sewing and general housekeeping 
lessons have taught hundreds of girls of the 
New York public schools, and through 
: them their parents, how to live and to dress 
DEM better without increased expenditure; that a 
SAAS cleanly life is better than one lived amid dirt 
nd disorder. The object of these lessons is to teach the 
pupils to do the best possible with what they have. The re- 
ults have been more noticeable in the crowded districts of 
he East Side of New York City than in the homes of the 
‘ell-to-do, but they have been appreciable among the children 
yho live in detached houses and apartments as well as with 
he children who are numbered among the tenement dwellers. 
This feature of the public school work of New York City, 
| Home Work as Taught in Our Public Schools 
By Charles C. Johnson 
which is rarely understood by those not brought into im- 
mediate contact with it, is perhaps the most notable lesson 
in home making of the day. The pupil is not only taught to 
work with her hands, but is made to understand that the 
greatest success in the matters which she is considering fol- 
lows an intelligent partnership of head, hand and heart. 
Cooking lessons are first given girls of the grade in the 
grammar schools known as 7A. ‘This knowledge to be ac- 
quired, what is properly the initiatory course in cooking, con- 
sists of instruction concerning the equipment and care of the 
kitchen, entering into all the details concerning kitchen fur- 
niture, the most cleanly methods to follow, the proper way 
to care for a stove of any sort, the most economical way to 
use a gas stove, etc. In the direct application of cooking 
Cleaning the Range 
Washing Dishes and Making Cake 
