(d) Free Lectures. article being on a scale proportioned to its maker. This introduces the need for laundry work, to which the children take very kindly. The subject of cooking is approached through the consideration of some seasonable, familiar, and simple food, e.g., the potato; few of the children can at first trace its origin further back than the shop; so a sprouting potato is examined, compared with other plants, and planted, to be finally compared with a picture. By this and other means their eyes are gradually opened to the realisation of the many agencies needed to provide the boiled potato which forms so common an article of daily diet. All the lessons and their subjects are taken up in this way; a method which Miss Hyams feels to be best in this instance, as it widens the children's horizons and exercises their imagination and observation, while it guides them into more wholesome and intelligent habits The whole object of this particular club is to better the home conditions of a very poor neighbourhood, to further which a class for elder girls in cooking is also carried on. At first the preparation of a whole meal was tried with them, but time limits obliged this to be too hurried; so at last the existing plan was devised. The lady in charge supervises the preparation of and gives the recipe for the dish selected at one lesson, while on the next occasion the girls are required to come in, set about and carry on the entire process alone, though their instructor remains in the room and assists where help proves necessary. This method, while making no serious demand on the children, leads to the exercise of attention, forethought, and good method. Much care and ingenuity have been devoted to the equipment of this children's kitchen, which impressed me particularly by its practical completeness, compact arrangement, and the advantages it offers for the acquirement of orderly habits and a desirable sense of personal ownership. Three wooden shelves are fixed below the windows, right across one end of the room. These are sub-divided by partitions into ten cupboards, each two feet high by one foot wide; in these are kept, respectively, a half-pint saucepan, bowl, baking-dish, tin plate, vegetable knife, fork, spoon, and other small ware. On the long shelf which forms the top of the series of cupboards, and on the wall above, are placed the articles less frequently used, such as scales, spice boxes, meat chopper, etc. The children have also an extension table for cooking and little chairs of the right height for meals, a refrigerator, a chest of drawers to hold table and kitchen linen, a china closet and gas range, etc., all small, but perfect in detail. The means for washing and ironing have also been provided; tubs, trestle tables, irons, ironing boards, and so forth; bare necessaries, no luxuries, but everything bears the impress of being used and kept decently and in order. The educational value of all this private enterprise in good habit training, with its eventual influence on public health, is not lost upon the Boards of Education in the cities where it is at work; while its social worth is recognised, though as yet vaguely, by ENTRANCE (1) A High School (2) Actual teach- First Year. General Chemistry. SCOPE OF COURSE. 8 hours a week. Air. Water. Wells. Electricity. Physiology. 3 hours a week: organs of human body; circula- (Lectures and microscope work.) cost, and digestibility. Cookery. 5 hours a week: Food principles cooking. and laws of Animal, vegetable and cereal foods. Making of dough; simple daily menus; invalid cooking. Applied Chemistry. 5 hours a week: Study of proteids, starch, sugar. Physiology. 2 hours a week : Muscular physiology. Digestion. (Illustrated with fresh specimens and mannikin.) (Lectures and laboratory work.) Bacteria in dust, water, and milk, etc. Administrations of Households. 5 hours a week. (Small and Large.) Food as an economic factor. Diet and dietaries (schools and institutions.) Helpers, their training, duties, hours, and wages. Experimental Cooking. 5 hours a week : Existing methods of preparing food judged by Pedagogy, 5 hours a week: Principles of pedagogy as applied to the teaching of domestic science. Planning of courses. Sewing. (Special classes with extra fee.) Extension Society, (f) Univer- ments. many of the community at large. Some city Boards of Education have Saturday Morning Classes in Cooking and Sewing for girls, while these and Evening Classes for girls and adults are offered by practically all the Technical Institutes and in some Manual Training High Schools. The subjects of Physiology and Hygiene being obligatory in schools do not depend for their introduction upon outside agencies, but that an interest in them is manifesting itself among adults is evident from the fact that courses of instruction in them are becoming more general in the published schedules of Free Lectures; especially has this been the case in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City. The Superintendent of the" Free Lectures to the People," Dr. H. M. Leipzinger, brought forward some interesting facts in this connection in his last Report. After drawing attention to the large and steady attendance at most of the centres, and to the discomfort frequently but cheerfully suffered by the crowded audiences (old men and women, after climbing sixty-five steps, obliged to sit on benches meant for children, etc.), he enumerates in order the subjects which excite this thirst to learn, and which, in one season, held the attention and awakened permanent interest among more than half a million middle-aged people. Physiology and Hygiene head the list; Civics appear in company with History and Geography, while Sociology closes the roll of first favourites, following after Music and Art. By means of illustrations, where possible by experiments and lantern views, the eye, ear and brain are stimulated and trained; so that he feels it to be now justifiable to plan a four-years' course in several lines of study, of which Hygiene is to be one. Those who wish to pursue a definite course will thus be enabled to get a general and well-defined outline of their subject ; at the conclusion of the period they will be entitled to receive a certificate, which shall possess a genuine value. (e) People's Hygiene teaching on simple lines is undertaken by the People's University University Extension Society of New York; while similar educational lectures are given by competent teachers at many University Settlements, among which special mention should be made of those at Hull House, Chicago. I must not omit to mention that domestic subjects are also included in the classes offered to boys and girls in most of the social settlements in New York City, Chicago, Cleveland, O., Columbus, O., and elsewhere. These, with many other branches of manual work, prove, exclusive of the excursions, the most popular features at the various schools carried on by voluntary agencies, in an increasing number of cities, during a part of the three months' summer vacation. It (g) Vacation would be beside the mark to dwell at length upon these Vacation Schools. Schools, with their ideas, methods and influences; though it has quite recently been proved in London, that the short holidays usual in England among the class of children they are designed to benefit, does not prevent the possibility of their successful introduction into this country. C. SUMMER SCHOOLS. Science The case of Summer Schools for adults is somewhat different. Typical These are also held during the long cessation of school work, rendered Domestic desirable by the intense heat of a climate very diverse from the Courses: English. They are attended by a great number of teachers of all subjects, so that the scholastic element is well represented; but a large body of their students is furnished by members of other professions and by the leisured classes. Mothers of families will speak in a matter-of-fact way of the number of consecutive summers which have found them at one or other such school, in pursuit of knowledge either to equip themselves better for their household duties, for their social position, or to make them more intelligently companionable to their sons and daughters. These Summer Schools correspond somewhat to the University Extension Meetings held at Oxford and Cambridge, but are on a much larger scale; their programmes offer a considerable range of practical courses in the arts and sciences; while a feature is made of opportunities for consecutive study. These schools are attached to the greater number of Universities and Colleges, as well as occupying an independent position, as, for instance, the world-renowned Chau- (a) Chauttauqua. Professor Herbert B. Adams has given a vivid and auqua exhaustive exposition of the popular enthusiasm for this class of Domestic education in his monograph for the Department of Education at the Science. Paris Exhibition. (Monographs on Education in the United States, XXXV. No. 16, "Summer Schools and University Extension".) The courses average six weeks in length, and, by judicious arrangement and selection, very real work can be accomplished. This possibility is illustrated by the comprehensive practical course in Household Science at Chautauqua.* School of Table To illustrate that the civic side also is kept in view in these courses, () Chicago I may mention those available for summer students at Chicago University. University. The Department of Sociology heads its list of Summer School lectures with the "Citizen as Householder" (the house as a factor in public health, the control of the householder by the State, his duties in relation to sanitation and food supplies); while the second course is on "Food Supplies and Dietaries" under the same professor, Dean Marion Talbot. Eight alternate courses are detailed, of which four are largely concerned with sanitary science, viz., the two just enumerated and two more, of which the titles are "The Elements and Structure of Society " (a study of the economic, physiological, social, æsthetic, intellectual and moral elements in American Society), and "Municipal Sociology." School of The School of Education attached to the University also has (e) Chicago. classes in Home Economics and Art, and in Applied Art in its University Summer School. These are, however, practically Normal, not Education. general classes. Their end is the illustration of educational prin- Table ciples in connection with the subjects selected for study, with XXXVI. special reference to the needs of those who are already engaged in teaching; the subject matter of the classes falls, therefore, TABLE XXXVI. CHICAGO UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION.-SUMMER SCHOOL. NOTE.--The regular work for a summer student is three Mathematics: Mathematics of the High School. Applied Mathematics. Speech and Oral Reading: Speech, reading and dramatic art. Art: Nature Study, Drawing and Painting ; Chalk and clay modelling. Applied Art : Textiles, woodwork, book-binding. Manual Training: Course in woodwork. Course for Primary Grades. Educational Gymnastics. The basis of Gymnastic Development. room. Library: Library economy. |