Presumably to meet the demands of 
the great American public, one of the 
large circuses has introduced a woman 
clown. We would rather that profession 
would remain strictly a masculine one. 
However, there’s no accounting for some 
tastes. 
* 
There has been considerable discus¬ 
sion lately all over our country about 
giving the boys military instruction. 
Many who favor the scheme, think that 
the Government should furnish the 
money to carry it out. There are many 
who oppose the whole plan, and have 
very good reasons for doing it. How¬ 
ever, many of the schools have intro¬ 
duced military training, and no doubt in 
time the Government may give help in 
establishing the system. As a rule, the 
class of people who glory in the military 
aspect of manhood, also dilate on the 
domestic side of woman’s mission. Now 
we may have war or we may not. Sol¬ 
diers are of little use except in war. 
But there is no doubt that women will 
have to do all the mothering of the race, 
and most of its housekeeping. Yet we 
haven’t heard of any conference of great 
men who are anxious that the Govern¬ 
ment should exert itself to provide spe¬ 
cial courses in the public schools that the 
girls may be fitted in the best possible 
manner to do for the country what must 
be done, and be done by them. 
WORK FOR OUR GIRLS. 
BOTH HEALTHFUL AND REMUNERATIVE. 
VERY year our girls are leaving 
school, and starting out as inde¬ 
pendent little units in the big sum of 
the world’s work. \Vh 3 r is it that so 
many of them turn to the teacher’s work 
as the one they can best do ? The field 
is overcrowded—grievously overcrowded. 
Even if these special girls of ours suc¬ 
ceed in getting positions in a reasonably 
short time after they are graduated, they 
are more than likely to be inferior with 
as much work as there is little pay. The 
cases where fine positions are obtained 
at once, are exceptional—and there are 
so many bright girls waiting for them, 
bless their hopeful hearts ! Somebody 
will win the prize, and the rest must 
lose it and “take up” with something 
beneath their ambition and abilities. 
Teaching is surely a grand work— 
there’s no gamsaying that. It is, in its 
way, as blessed a field for real mission¬ 
ary work as far-away India and Japan. 
But there is no immediate danger of the 
laborers being too few for the vineyard 
—the danger lies the other way. There 
is another thing I would suggest as an 
argument against our girls choosing this 
line of work. It is a wearing work in 
which one grows old before her time. 
The care and monotonous routine are 
too much for nervous, slender bodies and 
over-sensitive minds, and too often we 
hear of some promising career brought 
to a painful standstill by that common¬ 
est and saddest of all modern complaints 
—nervous prostration. Observation and 
statistics agree that teachers grow old 
faster than almost any other workers. 
Heads whiten rapidly, and faces grow 
lined and careworn in the school-room 
before the years at all warrant the 
changes. Suppose, then, that we let the 
strong, vigorously-constituted girls go 
into the school-rooms, and our own las¬ 
sies, if they chance to be delicate and 
nervous, find a healthier field. I mean, 
let us advise them wisely, for, of course, 
we would not wish to force their inclina¬ 
tions or be instrumental in their getting 
into unsatisfactory, unambitious work. 
As for the healthier fields, are they not 
legion in these kindly times ? 
Two of them especially are in my mind 
and on my heart to-day—both in the 
direct line of domestic science, house¬ 
keeping and cooking—the names sound 
“common ” and every day, but they im¬ 
ply beautiful possibilities and far-reach¬ 
ing influences. They are the keynotes 
upon which the discord or harmony of 
all home life depends largely. Now¬ 
adays, for some unfortunate reason, our 
girls rather look down upon these occupa¬ 
tions, and choose even the factories, and 
clerkships, and trade apprenticeships, in 
preference to them. Foolish girls ! I 
wish I could dip my pen in liquid gold 
and paint a housekeeper’s life and a cook¬ 
ing teacher’s so vividly and pleasantly 
that you would see their nobleness and 
womanliness. There is such a crying 
need of your help right here ! Homes 
all over the country are suffering for 
just your bright minds and dainty fingers 
to set them right, and make them homes. 
And, after the time of apprenticeship is 
over, your very own homes will be so 
much the brighter and more homelike 
because of it. 
Just now, the art of cookery is truly a 
fine art. It has its stars, and its devout 
disciples, but not enough of them. Mrs. 
Lincoln, Miss Parloa, Mrs. Itorer, and 
many others—are all doing their best 
and doing it advantageously, too, to their 
bank accounts. It is a very “paying” 
business, to be sure, when one is fitted 
to do it well ; and it is womanly, de¬ 
lightful, needful work. It is a mission 
field that would seem to be adapted 
particularly to a woman’s wit and a 
woman’s delicate touch and sensibility. 
There are cooking schools in all the big 
cities with a thorough course of two 
years to fit their pupils for this line of 
work, and the course of study embraces 
all the sciences and “ ologies ” that bear 
upon this subject, including the latest 
discoveries that wiseacres have made 
and proved to menace our health and 
lives—all honor to the wiseacres ! The 
last part of the two year’s course is 
given up to practical work with mixing- 
bowl and spoon, and thorough skill in 
their use is insisted upon. When the 
pupil is graduated, she is well equipped 
to teach the cooking science in the pub¬ 
lic schools or in private classes, and 
there are quite sure to be plenty o'f 
openings for her, and good remunera¬ 
tion. Wide-awake schools are seeing the 
importance of this branch of education 
and letting it, if need be, crowd out 
some of the old, classic lores. 
The housekeeping field, too, is sadly 
in need of workers. If our girls could 
only look at it through clear spectacles ! 
It is such a pity that discredit and foolish 
prejudice were ever cast upon it, be¬ 
cause of an army of incompetent foreign¬ 
ers who have filled, or tried to fill, the 
gaps. The work is too sacred and beauti¬ 
ful to be scorned, but some one must be 
brave enough to champion it, and wise 
and sweet enough to realize its need and 
nobleness. a. h. d. 
A COOKING LECTURE. 
RECIPES WITH THE REASONS WHY. 
Part IV. 
HE bread is raised, and is now ready 
for the oven. It has about doubled 
its bulk, which is the rule, and it has 
been rising hardly an hour. The bak¬ 
ing of bread is by no means an unim¬ 
portant part of the making. It should 
be put into a pretty hot oven. I think 
that the largest part of the indigesti¬ 
bility of bread is caused by poor baking. 
You must remember that this yeast is 
a plant, and unless it is killed in the bak¬ 
ing, it goes on growing in the stomach 
and causes fermentation, so that the 
baking of bread is very important. A 
great deal is being written and said 
lately against yeast bread. One chemist 
gives it as his opinion, that of the two, 
baking-powder bread is the least objec¬ 
tionable, for the reason that yeast bread 
causes fermentation; but the cooks claim 
that the reason yeast bread causes fer¬ 
mentation is because it is not properly 
baked. If you will bear this fact in 
mind, I think that you will all agree 
that bread should be thoroughly baked, 
and remember to put your bread into a 
pretty hot oven to start with ; then the 
temperature may be lowered, but in 
order to kill the yeast germs, the center 
of the loaf must be raised to a tempera¬ 
ture of 212 degrees ; the oven would 
probably have to be about 450 degrees. 
The center of the bread does not reach 
that, however, from the fact that it is so 
moist, but it should reach the boiling 
temperature, in order effectually to kill 
the germs that cause fermentation. 
One of these dishes is tin, and the other 
sheet-iron. The bread in the sheet-iron 
pan, if it were no smaller, would cook 
quicker and browner than in the tin. I 
presume that most old housekeepers 
have recognized the fact that old tin 
that is brown, will cook better than a 
new bright tin; bright tin and iron reflect 
instead of carry the heat. One point 
that can be made in baking bread or any¬ 
thing else, is that if it does not bake 
quick enough, or well enough to suit, 
grease the tins with butter ; if it bakes 
too hard, grease them with some other 
fat that does not brown as quickly as 
butter does. 
Q.—How about using granite dishes 
to bake in ? 
A.—They are a little too thick, I find, 
for anything except pudding ; where it 
is desirable to cook it quickly, I do not 
like them. I have tried granite-iron pie- 
plates, but they are decidedly objection¬ 
able, because pastry ought to cook 
quickly after it is put into the oven. 
Q.—Do you like the aluminium baking 
pans ? 
A.—I have never tried them, but I 
think they would be even more objec¬ 
tionable than the granite from the fact 
of their brightness. 
Q.—Do you like the perforated pie- 
tins ? 
A.—I have never used them very much. 
I think they are very good, however, 
provided the pie-crust is always smooth, 
so that tiiere is no danger of the pie 
leaking through, which, of course, it 
always should be. The object is to get 
a brown bottom crust, which is one of 
the very desirable things. 
The next thing is fried white fish. In 
order to get it ready for frying, I shall 
bone it. It may also be skinned if the 
skin is objectionable ; but a great many 
prefer to have the skin left on, and it 
cooks very nicely in that way. 
Q.—How did you thaw out the fish ? 
A.—I put it in a pan of cold water. 
This is a slow process, but the only way 
you can do it. If you put it into hot 
water, the fish cooks so quickly that it 
softens too much on the outside. In or¬ 
der to get the bone out, I shall split it 
down the back. The fish has been scaled, 
as you see, wiped, and thoroughly 
cleaned. We shall have to remove the 
head. When you find the spine, you can 
commence pressing the meat away, and 
you will find that there is a little row of 
bones that project from the back of the 
spine. By a process of shoving with the 
knife, and pulling with the fingers, the 
flesh may all be laid back from the 
bone. A fish that has been frozen, is 
not quite so easy to handle as one that 
has not, because it is so much more 
tender. 
This fish is to be fried in deep fat, and 
after it has a coating of egg and bread 
crumbs, I shall let it stand until I get 
the sauce made to serve with it. Small 
fish may be boned in the same way. Of 
course, the process is a little more diffi¬ 
cult because the bones are so very much 
finer and harder to find, but I do not 
know that it is any more difficult than 
to bone it after it is cooked. It is cer¬ 
tainly very acceptable to get a bit of fish 
on your plate that you can eat without 
having to hunt for the bone. I shall 
cut this into pieces for serving, first cut- 
ing it lengthwise, and then across. 
I should speak about the egg that is 
to be used to dip this in. It is to be 
beaten only a little, not enough to make 
it light, but just enough thoroughly to 
mix the yolk and white, making it smooth, 
and then a tablespoonful of water may 
be added to the egg. It lightens it a 
little, makes it spread a little more 
evenly, and, of course, makes the egg go 
farther. Sometimes a fish that is very 
soft, must be skewered, and I always 
provide a box of wooden toothpicks to 
use as skewers for fish. In taking the 
bone from the other side, it may be lifted 
from the meat. 
Q.—Which did you put the fish into 
first, the egg or the bread crumbs ? 
A.—It w as first dipped into the bread 
crumbs,-then into the egg, and then into 
the bread crumbs again. 
Q.—Do you ever use cracker crumbs ? 
A.—Cracker crumbs are a little richer, 
and are very nice for some things where 
richness is desired. For frying oysters, 
I like cracker crumbs better than bread 
crumbs, but for most things I prefe 
bread crumbs. 
WOMEN AS WAGE EARNERS. 
E read a great deal about the 
“new” woman. Woman has 
been the same from the beginning ; she 
was created a helpmeet, and is still oc¬ 
cupying this sphere most nobly and 
truly. 
Two notable cases have come within 
my notice during the past year in which 
the man of the family may say with 
Adam, “ The woman whom thou gavest 
to be with me, * * she gave me and I 
did eat.” Had it not been for the woman's 
giving, the eating would have been very 
doubtful, indeed. Mrs. A. had been liv¬ 
ing on a farm ; but reverses, losses, crop 
failures, etc., had entirely disabled the 
family, and they moved to a little town 
Here the men and boys got a little work 
to do occasionally, but it was a very 
hard pinch for a living. Last spring, 
she began baking bread to sell, intend¬ 
ing, if she succeeded, gradually to in¬ 
crease her business and open a lunch 
counter. Her bread sold, and she began 
making ice cream and cake during the 
hot weather. She made good cream and 
served well-filled dishes. With plain 
cakes, she disposed of a great deal twice 
a week, and during the extreme heat, 
every evening. Later she added cookies, 
and now her window is filled with appe¬ 
tizing dainties, all looking so tempting 
that it is no wonder people buy. This 
woman has made a success where it 
seemed as though there could be no trade, 
the town being so small and the cus¬ 
tomers apparently few. She has solved 
the problem of bread for her family, and 
more, too. The husband helps her, and 
the two are working into a line business 
from a very small beginning. Mrs. A 
is a charming woman. She is intelligent 
beyond the average ; she is neat, lady¬ 
like, sweet and womanly. Her cus¬ 
tomers are her friends, made by her hon¬ 
est dealing and unvarying excellence in 
all she does. 
Mrs. B is another example. Recently 
she wrote me: “ I know that you are 
interested in all that concerns the wel¬ 
fare of the great sisterhood of wage 
earners, so I shall venture to tell you 
my little story. It is not much, to be 
sure ; but it may show some one else that 
it is not necessary to fold one’s hands 
in despair when obliged to give up work 
that was paying well, because one is 
needed at home. I was a nurse, and 
earned excellent wages ; but my daugh¬ 
ter who had lived at home was called 
away, and my husband was called upon 
