The access of bodies of students of this character cannot but profoundly modify the subjects and the methods of instruction of any school they enter; and every change wrought by the infusion of such a spirit will be sure to prove of benefit to scholar and to school alike.

I have, thus far, spoken only of the educational needs of our boys. How far the traditional courses of study shall be modified in the case of girls is a nicer question, respecting which it will not be unreasonable to await light from whatever experiments may be tried with children of the other sex. It would seem to be the dictate of wisdom to solve the easier part of the problem first.

That young women may become heartily interested in studies and exercises in the mechanic arts and may make themselves proficient at least in carpentry, is established by our experience at the normal schools of Bridgewater and Salem, Massachusetts. That such instruction, for those who are to become teachers, yields a professional accomplishment of prime importance, enabling the schoolmistress, especially in the rural districts, to make and repair much of the apparatus for teaching natural and physical science, is evident. This work cannot be too strongly pressed in all normal and training schools.

As regards grammar schools, I confess that my ambition would be satisfied, for the present, by the introduction of sewing and cooking, until the full capabilities of these two kinds of school exercises should be fully developed and fairly tested. The triumphant success which

has attended the extension of sewing through the lower grades of the grammar schools of Boston, and the admirable results which have been attained, so far as the cutting, fitting, and making of plain garments have been introduced into the upper grades of three districts,1 have put this school exercise beyond the stage of experiment. No intelligent and candid person, who thoroughly knows the work done in this department, any longer questions either the practical utility of the results achieved or the appropriateness of sewing in the school curriculum, as a strictly educational

agency.

Of equal promise of good to our citizenship and, as I believe, not less suited to the prime purposes of instruction, is the newer school exercise of cooking. So transcendent are the social, sanitary, and economic advantages of instruction in this art, in enabling the very poor to husband their resources, in preserving the health of the community, in removing baleful and destructive appetites, in promoting the comfort and decency of the family home, that any educator would be abundantly justified, were that necessary, in making this an exception to the rule that all school exercises should be distinctly educational. Especially in view of the great and painful change in our citizenship which is making such rapid progress before our eyes, does it become a patriotic duty to seize upon the only opportunity which the State enjoys of reaching the members of the rising 'Sewing is now a part of the course.-ED.

generation, and to employ some portion of the time of the children in the public schools for instruction in domestic economy and in the art of preparing food. The practical value of such an accomplishment, in the degree in which it may be acquired in a single brief course, is incontestably greater, to girls coming from poor and squalid homes, as so many tens of thousands do, than all else they could possibly learn in school, beyond reading, writing, and plain ciphering. The importance to the State of such girls acquiring this art, is, from a sanitary point of view, from an economic point of view, and from a political point of view, greater even than the importance of the elementary knowledge just referred to. We are threatened to-day, in the United States, with a lowering of the standard of living and with an impairment of the sense of social decency which would together constitute a greater industrial and political evil than we have known. All the letters that ever were taught in our public schools will not do so much to oppose and counteract these unfortunate liabilities as the two arts of sewing and cooking, properly taught under the authority of the State.

But we are not driven to defend the introduction of cooking into the public schools as an invasion of the proper field of education, justified by dire necessity. No one can spend an hour in the cooking schools of Boston, as they have been maintained, first through the philanthropic enterprise of Mrs. Hemenway, and afterwards at the expense of the city, without being impressed

by the very high educational value of the instruction given.

As a great object lesson in chemistry; as a means of promoting care, patience, and forethought; as a study of cause and effect; as a medium of conveying useful information, irrespective altogether of the practical value of the art acquired; the short course, which alone the means at command allowed to be given to each class of girls, has constituted, I do not doubt, the best body of purely educational training which any girl of all those classes ever experienced within the same number of hours.

I will mention but a single point. The very large range in the Tennyson-street cooking school was, during the last school year, ready to cook any of the dishes that might be prepared by the pupils, from half-past nine in the morning until half-past four in the afternoon, for five days in the week, for thirty-eight weeks. Fires were made, the dampers and drafts were controlled by the pupils under the direction of the teacher. The amount of coal consumed in this time was considerably less than two tons. Now, if any unhappy householder here present will compare this expenditure of fuel with what takes place in his own kitchen, he cannot fail to be impressed by a sense of the prudence, patience, care, forethought, intelligence, and skill involved in keeping up such a service at so small a cost. If this be not educational, pray what is education? And what is true of this is equally true of all the other exercises in the cooking school, under proper tuition.