“English Sanitary Institutions,” chap. viii., “The Growth of Humanity in British Politics.” Sir J. Simon. (Cassell & Co.)
Les Pouvoirs en Matière d’Hygiène—Part i. L’Hygiène dans les Législations de l’Antiquité. Alfred Filassier. (Paris: Jules Rousset.)
“English Sanitary Institutions,” part i. chaps. iii., iv., v., vi. Sir John Simon. (Cassell & Co.)
“Selected Essays and Addresses by Sir James Paget, F.R.S.”—“The Chronometry of Life,” Royal Society Croonian Lecture, May 1859. Edited by Stephen Paget, F.R.C.S. (Longmans & Co.)
“Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on the Employment of School Children, appointed by H. M. Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department,” 1901.
“Report of the Royal Commission on Physical Training (Scotland),” 1903, Neill & Co., Ltd., Bellevue, Edinburgh.
“Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration,” 1904.
“Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on the Model Course of Physical Exercises,” 1904.
“Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Medical Inspection and Feeding of Children attending Public Elementary Schools,” 1905.
“Report of Dr. W. Leslie Mackenzie and Captain A. Foster on a Collection of Statistics as to the Physical Condition of Children attending the Public Schools of the School Board for Glasgow,” 1907.
“Report of the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded,” 1908.
“Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and the Unemployed—Majority and Minority,” 1909.[108]
Journal of the Royal Sanitary Institute, April 1905—“Physical Inspection of School Children in Relation to Public Health Administration.” A. K. Chalmers, M.D., M.O.H., Glasgow.
“Continuation Schools in England and Elsewhere.” M. E. Sadler. (Manchester University Press, 1907.)
Report of Departmental Committee on “Employment of Children Act, 1903.” (Wyman & Son, July 1910.)
“Report to the L.C.C. Education Committee of the Medical Officer (Schools),” March 31, 1906. (P. J. King & Son.)
“Some Thoughts on Causation in Health and Disease.” An address delivered to the Faculty of Medicine, October 1909, by Lord Fletcher Moulton.
“Studies on Immunisation.” Sir Almroth Wright, F.R.S. (Constable.) “Immunity in Infective Diseases.” Metchnikoff. (Cambridge University Press.) “Immunity and Specific Therapy.” W. d’Este Emery. (Lewis & Sons.)
“Addresses and Proceedings of the National Education Association, St. Louis, Mo.,” 1904, pp. 952-962—“The Chicago Hospital School for Nervous and Delicate Children,” by Mary R. Campbell.
“On the Hours of Sleep at Public Schools.” A paper read before the Medical Officer of Schools Association, May 11, 1905, by T. D. Acland, M.A.
“Some Results of an Investigation into Hours of Sleep of School Children.”—International Magazine of School Hygiene, vol. v. part i. Alice Ravenhill.
“Secret Remedies: What they Cost and What they Contain.” British Medical Association. “Popular Drugs: Their Use and Abuse.” Sidney Hellier, M.D. (Werner Laurie.)
“Human Carriers of Typhoid and other Zymotic Diseases.”—The Sanitary Record, Sept. 8, 1910, pp. 215-216.
Modern woman finds herself in the twentieth century heiress to an accumulation of domestic experience handed down from her primitive sisters, much of which originated in necessity, and survives from custom.
It is said that “of the billion and a half human beings on the earth, about 700,000,000 are females, and what share their mothers and grandmothers, back to the remotest generation, have had in originating and developing culture is a question which concerns the whole race,” though allusion only can be made to it in this paper.
If, from the study of anthropology, we find that man was the hunter, the killer of food, it was woman who cared for it, prepared it for use, tilled the ground, cleaned, dried, cut, and sewed skins for clothing and shelter. It is believed by many authorities that it was woman who invented and made many of the implements with which she worked, and who spun, wove, and dyed fibres of all 296 kinds into strong, useful, and sometimes beautiful fabrics of varied and pleasing tints and colours, from dyes of her own making, which she obtained from animal and vegetable sources. The introduction of much plain and ornamental stitchery, the forerunner of the needlework of the present day, followed quickly upon the coming of textiles.
Until the invention of machinery and the institution of the factory system, the practice of a large number of arts was in the hands of women as part of their lives and homes. Now, however, women are no longer leather-dressers, potters, or weavers in the home—these arts have become trades for men, carried on in factories; and even the more intimate arts of cooking, cleaning, and needlework are threatened from the outside.
The cheapness and readiness with which the products of the factory can be obtained, whether for the purposes of food or of clothing, has to a large extent removed the desire to exercise these arts herself, especially from the woman whose time can be otherwise employed to her financial advantage in industrial pursuits. It would almost appear that she has failed to perceive the intellectual and æsthetic enjoyment to be derived from them, and has been content to permit the skill and knowledge she originally acquired and exercised to rust from want of practice as each generation succeeds its predecessor. On the other hand, as the accumulated profits from the factory have made it possible for well-off women to depute their own share of cooking, cleaning, sewing, and 297 the care of children by payments to their less financially fortunate sisters, usually untrained women of narrow education, public opinion has shown a tendency to regard these arts as menial, and to some extent derogatory in practice to the educated and refined. Amongst this class of women, consequently, knowledge of these arts has steadily dwindled, until the home-made jams, jellies, cordials and pickles of our grandmothers, the linen they spun, wove, and fashioned, are no longer the glory of our storerooms and linen-presses; while the home has come to be less and less regarded as the right and proper place for instruction in the domestic arts.
Deep down, however, in the modern woman’s nature lies the old instinct for order, for caring for things animate and inanimate. This instinct has found expression since the early seventies among more fortunately situated women in an endeavour to arrest the decay of what I have called the more intimate household arts, to promote their revival and to raise their status in education—an endeavour due, shall we say, to “something in the air,” a kind of “Zeit Geist”—beginning more or less contemporaneously on the Continent of Europe, in Great Britain, and in the United States and Canada; an endeavour not to benefit themselves alone, but to help their poorer sisters.
It was soon agreed that the cultivation of the household arts belonged to education, and that they might and should be taught in schools; but the questions—What was their link with general 298 education, by what methods they could be most appropriately taught, and in the curriculum of what schools they should find a place—have been the basis of prolonged experimental effort. It is now the opinion of a large section of persons of authority in education, that these arts are neither “sacred mysteries which can only be understood by patient life study,” nor, on the other hand, can any woman, whatever her intellectual ability, master them without training. It has been well said, in effect, that the former attitude leads to a contempt for the plain everyday things of life, while the latter is responsible for the cultivation of a girl’s head at the expense of her hands.
The arts of cooking and cleaning took the lead in order of experiment. The results, as recorded, have proved their position to belong directly to the region of applied science, and to be worthy of a place in a specially arranged course of household science and economics for women, of university standard. We may confidently expect that this result only anticipates a corresponding triumph, awaiting in its turn similar experimental work, which has been carried on for some years in respect of the teaching also of the art of needlework. These experimental efforts include the intelligent employment of the pencil, the scissors, and the needle in the production of garments, draperies, napery, and so forth. The lines along which at the present moment this development is proceeding have regard indeed not only to the practical worth of needlecraft, but to its intimate 299 association with general education as well as to decorative and applied art.
When we inquire what have been the results of past methods of teaching needlework in our elementary schools, and find that they are in no way commensurate with the time, labour, and money spent upon them, it surely is wise to call a halt and examine into our aims and methods. The circular of “Suggestions for the Teaching of Needlework” issued by the Board of Education in August 1909 is not the first authoritative pronouncement of the Board on this matter, but is the outcome of “the well-considered criticism” invited upon their “Suggestions” on the same subject issued in 1905, which teachers and others were asked to consider as a challenge to independent thought on the subjects of which it treated.
This challenge has resulted in the statement of certain important “principles” in the new circular and of the proper attitude of the teacher towards them, viz.:—
I. The duplex aspect of needlework.
1. As a separate branch of instruction, the aim of which is proficiency.
2. As a means to an end, other than (but not excluding) a certain proficiency, i.e. to develop the intelligence and even to form the character of the child.
II. The subject must be made interesting if it is to be educational. The making of specimens is not interesting, and should be discouraged, excepting for the practice of new stitches before they can be used on a complete garment or article, however small, for the child herself or for others.
III. Correlation of needlework with drawing and arithmetic in the higher classes.
1. To train the eye in form and proportion.
2. To illustrate principles of arithmetic, by measuring and deciding upon quantities and by calculating cost, introducing incidentally ideas of economy and thrift.
IV. Needlework lessons are ordinarily uninteresting and wearisome to body and mind. This need not and should not be; if the subject is taught with the why and wherefore of things, it should rather stimulate intelligence and capacity.
V. Opportunity is afforded by the lesson for practically and tactfully inculcating the charm of neatness, cleanliness, and tidiness in person and in clothing, encouraging the child in self-respect and to regard as a matter of shame that any girl should reach woman’s estate without a practical knowledge of the use she can make of the needle.
Certain suggestions follow as a basis for a more detailed scheme, viz.:—
1. Classification of scholars as to age and capacity.
2. Size of illustrations and use of blackboard.
3. Instruction of weakly children, and care of eyesight.
4. Exercises in knitting and various forms of constructive handwork for very young children, in preparation for definite instruction in needlework at a later age.
5. Condemnation of habit of counting threads.
6. Order of teaching “processes” in needlework, from simple to complex.
7. Suitability of materials, needles, and threads to each other, and of the style of sewing to the garments which the children should wear.
8. Direction of attention to the fact that hands and eyes which have been sensibly trained to execute “plain work” will acquire “fancy work” quite readily later on if leisure can be found.
9. New methods and stitches to be learned on waste material.
10. Importance of practice in mending at school and at home.
11. Importance of cutting-out and pattern-making.
12. Garments made to be worn, not kept at school.
13. Elaborate making-up of paper garments to be discouraged.
14. Rough sketches to train the eye to recognise the value to each other of different parts of a pattern.
15. Importance of recognition of difference between a well-cut and an ill-cut garment.
16. Calculation of kind, quantity, and cost of material to be worked out in an arithmetic lesson.
17. Note-books and records to be kept.
18. Fixing to be done by actual maker of garment—not a joint production.
19. Use of sewing machine permitted for long seams and hems.
20. No time to be wasted while waiting for teacher’s help. Independent work to be encouraged. Knitting and other suitable work to be at hand.
This excellent and sensible paper of suggestions means an offer of freedom on the part of the Board; it remains, therefore, but to accept and adopt its conditions. A practical difficulty, however, at once arises from the fact that, after a long period of bondage to many “Regulations,” it is difficult for the teaching profession in general to realise that independent judgment is now expected 302 of them, indeed is required, though this is a phase temporary and evanescent, which will quickly adjust itself.
For lack of time and space we must here pass over the important question of the relation of the domestic arts to the general school curriculum, as well as the proportion of time to be allotted as between needlework and the other domestic arts, and dwell for a moment on the relative qualifications of our teachers in different sections of the whole subject taken at its widest, for these qualifications reflect the existing demands of the public. Taking England, for example—how do we stand with other countries in this respect? Speaking generally, and as one who, though not professionally a teacher, has for many years had a hand in the training of teachers, and who has given much time and thought to the comparative study, both theoretical and practical, of needlework and dressmaking, it seems to me that, as to sewing, we are as good, if not in some ways better than our neighbours, though we have been apt to regard the perfection of our stitches as an end in itself, which decidedly vitiates our conclusion. We also appear to have much to learn, or at least to practise, in respect of suitability of materials, needles, and threads to each other, and of the style of work to the purpose required. As to “cut” and “the hang of the thing,” and the root difference between an “ill-cut” and a “well-cut” garment, I fear we make a bad third with France and Austria; but with our newly acquired freedom we can and 303 we must change all that: the public begin to demand it.
In the first place, we must clear our minds of the indefinite cloud of detail in which they have been so long submerged; or, to change the metaphor, whereas hitherto we have too often not been able to see the wood for the trees, we must now learn clearly to distinguish between “principles” and “methods,” which in practice are over frequently confused: then, quite easily and naturally, the teacher will derive resulting details from the few definite principles which are the “basis alike of the simplest garment and the most artistic handicraft,” and “the principles once understood, in one instance, the pupils will be able to make wider applications for themselves.”
It is important here to emphasise that some elementary knowledge of hygiene, physiology, and anatomy is necessary for the intelligent appreciation of the requirements of the body as to clothing, and of its alterations in shape when muscles are tense or relaxed. By a reliable system of drafting from direct measurement, such as one of those in use in the Ecoles Professionelles of Paris, a shaped bodice can be produced fitting the arms and figure easily and gracefully, and from this pattern can be deduced further patterns of other garments, whether tight, loose, or semi-fitting, which hang from the shoulder or the waist.
When the theory of drafting has been learned, and the shapes and proportions of a pattern and its derivatives are understood, “moulage” or 304 modelling on the figure in muslin, should be attempted; though, be it remembered, “moulage” should not be regarded as a substitute for drafting, but as its necessary accompaniment, for it affords opportunity for eye training, and for learning how and where at certain points the material should be stretched or held easily on the figure. The pupil is thus prepared to handle the pattern intelligently when cut out in material.
I have seen it objected that only awkward and wooden lines can be obtained from drafting on paper because of its rigidity, and because the pattern is built up upon a framework of straight lines at right angles to each other. The objector cannot have understood that the rectangular construction lines have no connection with the outlines of the pattern, except as affording points d’appui, which are found by direct measurement. These construction lines stand for the warp and woof, or “thread” of the material to be used for the garment. Stress must be also laid on the fact that the grace or angularity of the pattern outline actually depend upon the eye training and perception of curves derived from drawing lessons, which must, for this as well as other reasons, form a part of the scheme of instruction.
Limits of time and space have only allowed me to touch the fringe of a fascinating and useful subject; but the frequent conferences of teachers now being held in different centres, and the new 305 suggestions of the Board of Education are stimulating so much interest and discussion that I feel that the educational teaching of needlework in its broad sense in England has a cheerful future. There is already much excellent teaching and work done in some of the trade schools in London as well as in a few of its elementary schools, and others elsewhere, which leaves little to be desired from many points of view.
Apart from the modern educational treatment of needlecraft and dressmaking, though arising directly from it, are the unquestioned advantages which may result to any woman of whatever rank or social position who is willing to devote, in the first instance, a little time and intelligence to mastering a few elementary principles introductory to their practical application, either by herself or by any one in her employment, to the cutting and making of her own garments from direct measurement, modified by measurements of individual carriage or conformation.
When these modifications are clearly understood, the proving of the flat pattern on the table after drafting should produce a well-shaped and correct lining, without the misery of standing for hours in the ordinary way to be “fitted on.” If finer touches are needed, they are of the nature of “moulage,” or modelling; the different parts of the pattern retain their balance and relative proportions, and the length of the operation is much shortened.
The majority of women, especially when past 306 youth, are not so happy as to possess the theoretically perfectly balanced and well-proportioned figure which has been so successfully adopted by the best business houses as the basis for cutting high-class ready-made garments. Happy indeed is the woman who can “walk straight into them” without the offered “slight alteration” which so often spoils the cut and brings bitter disappointment to the wearer. There are few women who have not groaned under the waste of time and fatigue entailed by being “fitted on” under the hands of the “little dressmaker,” or for that matter under hands of much greater pretension, with no idea of principles in cutting, who pinch and drag and smooth down by rule-of-thumb, producing garments without balance or ease, whose faults may be disguised by trimming or drapery, but whose discomfort is always present to the wearer.
Women have in fact so long submitted to this tyranny of rule-of-thumb in dress-cutting, as inseparate from it, that, as is their nature, they continue to endure what they think cannot be cured. Nevertheless, the discomforts and uncertainties of this rule-of-thumb misery may be entirely eliminated, and it is for the modern woman to demand and insist upon its elimination.
Let me especially recommend to ladies possessing the invaluable qualities in this connection of taste and style in dress, who may be thinking of taking up dressmaking as a profession, that as an important preliminary step they should master the principles of a good method of cutting. Let 307 them make sure that the method can lay claim to this description; that it is reliable and not altogether empirical. Thus they will render themselves to some extent independent of the possible vagaries and misfits of their cutters and workers. The excellent courses of instruction now carried on in the trade schools already referred to should ere long create a supply of well-trained young women who will do their best work under an instructed head, and will be able to carry out intelligently her ideas and directions. Under such conditions there should be no room for failure in a business of this kind. As a result, the arts of needlecraft and of dressmaking will be raised to the plane of scientific certainty and success which is their due, instead of remaining at the often low level of the unorganised, empirical and inartistic occupations—a frequent source of financial disaster to their exponents and of perennial vexation to the helpless victims of their products.
The position of modern woman towards matters domestic is somewhat undefined, and at best can hardly be considered satisfactory. Her attitude towards housekeeping is not one of enthusiasm. The Lancashire mill-girl is proud to have a house of her own, but prefers her life at the mill to one spent in ordering that house; the elementary school teacher considers housekeeping of so little economic interest that she is injured if she may not devote her married life to a profession demanding the best of her energy; the university graduate pretends to a mind superior to physical comfort and welfare unless it can be produced by a creature less specialised than herself.
In the field of paid occupations for women, educated and uneducated, domestic work stands low; not necessarily low in scale of payment, but uninviting as a sphere of work and lacking the dignity of skilled employment. That good housewives may be found in every grade of society is 309 evident, but the general trend of our social evolution demands that some organised effort shall be made to simplify actual work and to raise the appreciation of that work.
In history and philosophy, the moral advantages of a good home have been acknowledged and extolled. The physical advantages are only now being fully emphasised, and there is an ever-increasing demand that women shall diligently apply their best efforts, first to the problems of the individual household, and then beyond it to those forms of housekeeping that fall to municipal and national control. We need a different estimate, a better realisation, of the enormous responsibility that lies in feeding, housing, and general hygienic conditions, and such a realisation must work from the top downwards in our social and intellectual strata.
In the care of the sick we have seen a complete revolution. Even so recently as the days of our grandparents “Sarah Gamp” was the general refuge—now her name is a byword. The work of nursing and the care of an invalid’s room, be it home or hospital, has been raised from mere manual labour. Intellect has established formulæ and dogma on which workers can be trained, and the work itself has been proved not alone a suitable means by which a woman can earn her living, but also a profession demanding a dignified respect and admiration. The researches of medical laboratories—the accumulated experience of the great physicians and surgeons of the world—are constantly 310 placing valuable knowledge in the hands of nurses and those who train them. Elaboration and fuss have gone in favour of a simplicity of service based on scientific facts; the influence of the trained worker has to some extent permeated the untrained service of home nursing. Great may still be our ignorance and great the need for a more adequate service, especially in the homes of the poor, but taken as a whole the care of the sick has been raised to what we may, without ambiguity, call a scientific art. Nursing may be popular from a love of such work and from its financial return, but the real strength of the nursing world lies in its organised provision of skilled women sent out to their work with a knowledge of its detail and a training in routine, paid for by service during years of apprenticeship.
The changes that have been effected in regard to the care of the sick may not form a perfect analogy of what can be done in other forms of domestic work, but they at least constitute a lesson in cause and effect, with many suggestions for the would-be reformer. Improvement in nursing owes its first impetus to a realisation of the part a nurse must of necessity play in curing or alleviating suffering, and any real improvements in our general domestic work and conditions will only be seriously considered when they are properly appreciated in their relation to the health and efficiency of the nation. To bring this home to individuals and classes must be the work of education. Let us magnify the office of the 311 housewife unduly rather than leave it unrecognised. We must demand something more than mere manipulative skill from the manual worker—a knowledge and interest from those who direct her work; a place in laboratories and schools for the many problems worthy of elucidation. To make lessons in housecraft a part of the curriculum of elementary and secondary schools has its own good; to make lessons in sick-nursing also a part might be good; but to leave both there would be only to patch, not mend, a rent in our social conditions. The matter must find its way into universities and research schools for its physical and economic investigation—as in other kinds of work we need an aristocracy of brains to guide the democracy of hands to found an apprenticeship system that shall provide efficient workers to bring the mighty forces of chemical, physical, and biological science to bear directly on such matters as selection of foods, methods of cooking, better apparatus for cleaning purposes, and an evolution of house-planning and furnishing that shall reduce the present elaboration of service and cleaning. It is not possible that every woman who cooks a potato shall be intimately acquainted with the structure of starch-cells or the effect of heat on those cells, nor is it likely that we shall aim at a system that makes the cooking of our food as exact as a laboratory experiment, but that thermometer, microscope, and test-tube have their own part to play is evident. The use of a disinfectant by a nurse is a scientific operation, the scope of 312 which has only been made possible by many and careful investigations in which the specialised effort of the few has resulted in a definite formula and a handy preparation only to be used with intelligent appreciation of its purpose. She understands its use and abuse, how to adapt it to circumstances, and probably how to find a substitute for it if occasion requires.
It is much on these lines that many of the problems of kitchen and household interest must be attacked.
We need a simple and reliable classification of foods that shall be useful to the practical cook. A quantitative analysis of proteid or carbo-hydrate qualities of wheat, lentils, or milk may form excellent exercise for laboratory classes, but even there it is too often taught without any relation to the assimilative properties of the average digestion and their consequent effect on food values. For ordinary use we want all this brought to a general outlook of the value, and comparative value, of such ordinary food as bread, oatmeal, eggs, and beef; not only as to suitable proportions in our diet and to methods of cooking, but also as a help in providing suitable substitutes for a particular commodity in time of scarcity. Beyond the inevitable victims of the Irish potato famine, many suffered quite unnecessarily for want of ability to replace the familiar potato by a possible substitute; and to-day we are little more intelligent in our catering. Quantity and quality of the potato crop must 313 each year to some extent make itself felt on small purses, and while not dependent on this one article of diet we might often help a meagre table by a good substitute such as rice, hominy, dumplings, and an increased supply of fresh vegetables. Substitutes for butcher’s meat too often suggest the purely vegetarian dish that to most people is but a pis aller. To replace part or even most of the meat in a dish with a food of approximate dietetic value would generally be more acceptable. A dish of haricot beans cooked with a little minced beef is, for example, a very different dish from the vegetarian treatment of the same article. Pea-soup made with the addition of a ham or beef bone will generally win approval over its less “tasty” rival. The value of eggs and the many ways of using cheese—the possibilities of oatmeal beyond mere porridge—are all matters worth understanding; so also is the problem of our milk supply.
The fact that legislation is active in securing the hygienic conditions of the wholesale milk supply cannot excuse individual indifference to either its actual value or suitable treatment. The inferiority of skim or separated milk to “whole milk” has been so emphasised that in many places a useful article is lying as a drug in the market. That skim milk is as useful as many “stocks” and much better than water for making porridge, maigre soups, sauces, for mixing bread and scones, has yet to be appreciated, and will only be so when the true economic use of food 314 is removed from its present haphazard position among the instinctive arts!
The constructive consistency of meat, fish, and vegetables must be clearly set out if we are to understand the effect upon them of heat. The primary methods of cooking and the standard proportions of ingredients may already be used with an intelligence that at least puts aside the recipe book; but the research that can produce a satisfactory system of catering and cooking has yet to invade the higher education of men and women. A suggestion of the scientific treatment of domestic matters too often presumes an elaboration of work rather than a reduction of it, and yet we all realise the labour-saving and economic return that has been the result of science applied to commercial industries. There must be a definite aim to simplify housekeeping and domestic work; the conditions of life have gone that made a women find scope for all her energy in administering the affairs of her house or in employing others to that end.
To the uninitiated the various culinary processes seem endless, and to arrive at a proper accomplishment of these is generally considered a matter of continuous practice. A better understanding of the matter readily shows that while many processes can only be perfected by repetition, there are even more that fall under science rather than art. Take, for example, the principles underlying the cooking of meat by stewing. This is surely a process where manipulation is nil. To make pastry 315 or bread we must have a certain practice in the manipulation to give the deftness (on which final success depends) in addition to any understanding of the principles involved; but with regard to stewing and many similar processes it should be possible to have one lesson made so explicit that the actual process was known for all time—the Irish stew of an artisan’s home or the dainty entrée of the “Ritz” being only an adaptation of given principles to different foods.
In order to reduce primary methods to such business-like proportions, it is necessary to consider them in their effect on different foods, having due regard to texture and to the effect of a moist or a dry heat. It would be a matter of interest to know how the established methods of cooking meat and fish all really conduce to one end, viz. to soften the fibres by steam formed from their own juices. The rules for most methods of cooking these foods lead to this assumption, though nominally based only on a means of retaining these juices in order to save a valuable part of the food. The actual part played by the liquid in which foods are cooked is possibly very small, but not to be ignored; the presence of salt in the water in which beef or potatoes is cooked makes an appreciable difference in the flavour and probably in the food value. The relation of the fat used in frying to the food fried in it is too often quite misunderstood, and a dyspeptic patient consequently is ordered “no fried food.”
To “fry in butter” sounds well, but it is 316 practically impossible; to sauté in butter at a temperature allowing some of the butter to enter the food, is quite a valuable method of cooking; but to raise the temperature to a point at which frying can be done is to char the butter. To fry properly, the food should be immersed in fat so hot that the outside of meat is immediately “set.” Then allow the heating of the juices inside the meat to perform the necessary cooking. The immersion of the cold food soon lowers the temperature of the fat and makes continued immersion possible. The best kind of fat for this purpose and the relative temperature at which different fats may be used needs more investigation. At present for ordinary kitchen use we have no more reliable test of temperature than to venture a bit of bread and judge by result. One thing we may accept—frying is not a greasy or rich method of cooking. The fat used is merely a means of excluding atmosphere and cooking food at a high temperature; it bears no more relation to the food itself than does the atmosphere of the oven in baking.
This question of temperatures and their relation to the kind of food, as also to the various cookery processes, needs careful handling; we want not alone a definite dogma established on a scientific basis, but we want the means to apply it brought within easy reach—reach of a limited purse and a limited intellectual capacity, for we are not all scholars. There is no reason why a thermometer should not become part of our kitchen equipment 317 just as readily as that old sand-glass which regulated the boiling of an egg, but, before it is the case, many other matters must fall into line. It is probable that a careful investigation of the best means of frying, boiling, stewing, &c. would effect a considerable revolution in our household pots and pans. Is it impossible to produce a pan in which a given quantity of fat or oil should be easily brought to, say, 400° Fahr., and yet be unable to exceed that temperature? It would so safeguard expense from burning that the most delightful frying medium, olive oil, would be readily used by many people.
The matter of watching, and waiting, and judging the exact minute for certain operations takes far more time than is generally supposed, and the gloom surrounding the average kitchen range increases the difficulty. The cook who understands the use of double pans for oven and range has done something to save both time and anxiety, but it is evident that much more might be done to render many cookery processes almost automatic. The science that controls the production of such commercial products as biscuits, tinned foods, pickles, and jam, and turns them out to a uniform standard, is at present remote from the household kitchen. Such scientific knowledge has been produced at a commercial value for commercial enterprise. We need our problems brought into universities and colleges; into the channels where research is made public; into the laboratories of schools, where, if no wonderful result may be proclaimed, 318 we have at least established a scientific method of approaching the work of kitchen, laundry, and storeroom. The ordinary teaching of the domestic subjects too often tends to magnify the difficulties in order to show how they may be overcome. The simplification of methods by classification would do much, and the evolution of possible devices for saving labour would do still more, to establish a favourable view of housekeeping. What is worth doing is worth doing well; but it is “doing” unnecessarily that spells drudgery.
Our attitude in considering household problems turns almost involuntarily to cooking, but the need for an intellectual grasp of matters domestic is equally potent in methods of cleaning. If the word “hygiene,” which we use so glibly, were really understood and appreciated, the modern house-builder and furnisher would quickly be sent to swell the ranks of the unemployed, and we should demand construction and fittings which would minimise the problems of dust and tarnish, provide suitable storage for food, and allow cleaning to be simple, straightforward, and efficient. The advent of the vacuum cleaner is less valuable in itself than in the establishment of a new principle for dealing with dust, and one that may eventually revolutionise our house-cleaning. We need a simple appliance of equal scientific value to reduce some at least of the labour entailed in “washing-up.” Pots and pans, plates and dishes may be economised in number by a careful 319 worker, but cleaned they must be, and the average “sink” of scullery or pantry is little removed from the pristine incompleteness of its first appearance. There is, in the cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral, a sink, evidently used by the monks of the sixteenth century, which is identical with those found in sculleries of to-day, and yet chemistry and physics have revolutionised our industries and produced all sorts of scientific methods for cleaning, lighting, and heating on a large scale. Perhaps when the same woman who takes a D.Sc. bestows some of her energy on the washing of dishes we shall get to something less primitive than washing each individual greasy plate with a mop or cloth. The only scientific treatment of “washing-up” used at present seems open to criticism, and is only suited to large establishments, but it should be possible to construct every sink with some sort of douche and general fittings suited to this work.
The question of the position of modern woman towards laundry-work seems to have resolved itself into one of income. If she can pay for the services of a steam laundry she does so. In the United Kingdom it is estimated that there are 30,000 public laundries, but we have yet to find one that can produce a list of charges within reasonable limits of a small income. In the homes that are run on incomes of £100 to £400 a-year, and where the laundry-work is done at the public laundry, the amount of “washing” must be small, or some other side of the expenditure must be seriously curtailed. Laundrying performed intelligently 320 and under suitable conditions is neither difficult nor unpleasant. To stand over a wash-tub rubbing each article by hand; to strain every muscle emptying that tub; to dry garments on a rail across a kitchen and iron them near a blazing fire is not intelligent, and can only be followed by women driven by custom to wash clothes at all. Perhaps in no section of household work are scientific methods within reach as in the laundry; the existence of the public laundry and the rivalry of different firms has produced an open market for appliances of all kinds, and the exhibition of laundry utensils, machines, &c., has become an annual event. Though many of the inventions are destined for the “power” and general scope of the public laundry, there are always a number of home appliances to be seen; many more would be adapted if there were more demand. Any real scope for these must rest in the first place with architect and house-builder. In the North of England it is usual to build a small “wash-house” to nearly every house, but the general construction of these wash-houses is such as to discourage any desire to use them. Only cold water is provided; the boiler is arranged as a detached unit; the possibility of a drying cupboard in connection with kitchen stove or hot-water cylinder is never considered, and the economical heating of irons is generally overlooked. The use of irons heated by gas, charcoal, and methylated spirit would be more general if these were more efficiently constructed and less expensive. The provision of electricity 321 at a cost within the reach of ordinary folk will simplify many things in laundry-work as in cooking and cleaning. Instruction is, to some extent, already available as to soaps, detergent solutions and bleaching agents. We need more appreciation of the part that may be played by the process of “steeping” and the minimum of handling with which clothes may be efficiently washed and finished. The profit and loss in the matter cannot be estimated only in labour, time, soap, and firing; the wear and tear of fabric in public laundries compared with home handling and the risk of infection involved must both be taken into account. If we make laundrying easy we do much to make a frequent change of garment possible to a section of the community inclined to economise in this direction, and we should probably make fashionable those household materials that may be consigned to a wash-tub, instead of paying a reluctant visit to the dry-cleaner—chintz, cretonne, and Bolton sheeting instead of serge, tapestry, and plush. We owe one debt of gratitude to the public laundry—it has raised a section of household work to the level of a skilled industry, though as yet there seems no system of apprenticeship that turns out the “complete” laundress.
For the limits of a short paper these matters have perhaps been treated somewhat discursively, but the object has been attained if, by the few illustrations selected, some attention has been drawn to the field of inquiry which lies open, and the urgent need for a definite application of scientific 322 minds to problems which, amid all the advances of this progressive age, seem to lag behind. The inclusion of housecraft as part of the curriculum of elementary and secondary schools may do much to rouse interest and overcome some difficulties of cooking, &c., but to any one familiar with these classes it is evident that their scope is very limited, if only for the reason that the teaching so often treats the work of housekeeping as an imitative art, based, for want of reliable scientific data, on rules and recipes that are practically organised tradition no more. In secondary schools, the introduction of laboratory work has opened up fresh possibilities of a more reasonable treatment of housecraft, for it is certain that, when teachers are properly equipped for their work, biology, physics, and chemistry (organic and inorganic) can be successfully taught along lines that bring within the scope of school science such matters as food and feeding, cooking and washing, fuels, heating, ventilation, and hygiene.
To teach chemistry and physics in the usual academic manner and then tack on a course of cookery and laundry-work at the end of school life cannot possibly be of the same value as the co-ordinated courses; we want scientific method even more than “science” for these schools girls, who shall so soon be the housekeepers and home-makers. We may say with Stevenson, “A dogma learned is only a new error—the old was perhaps as good; but a spirit communicated is a perpetual possession.” For those girls who pass 323 on to a university or technical school we want an intelligence alert to all that may lie in further investigation of those problems suggested at school.
A certain jealousy may be pardoned that the possible evolution of housekeeping may be the work of women; the leaders of the “woman’s movement” have so often spoiled their work by following the lines of men’s activities and aiming at a goal essentially masculine. The things that go to housekeeping seem so intimately connected with motherhood and mothering that it must be hoped our most able women will bring their intelligence, their education, and their sense of national responsibility to the task of housekeeping—to the simplification of its problems, the reduction of the labour involved, and the organisation of the paid service. There is certainly scope for master-minds.
We touched on the organisation of the nursing service. If it is possible to duly care for the sick and at the same time train an efficient nurse, it is surely possible to provide proper service in the huge caravanseries of our modern life, and at the same time provide a suitable apprenticeship for the domestic worker. Good instruction at school, followed by one or two years of definite training in a hostel or boarding-house, should produce a class of skilled women workers who can be organised and employed on the same lines as those of the nursing service.
In many branches of labour the women are 324 ousting the men; unless we can make good the present breach in our home bulwark and train our army of defence, we may find men ousting women in their own particular sphere.
America and Canada, realising that their coveted nationality must be founded on homes, have brought into their universities the “science of home affairs.” England, in spite of the warning note sounded by inquiries into physical deterioration, infant mortality, and kindred evils, has been content with a tradition of good homes, and has so far done little more than provide a smattering of cookery lessons for elementary school girls.
There is, however, a promise of better things. One university college has made a venture into home science, and other universities would soon be at work if the necessary money could be secured. Oh, for some silver-tongued evangelist to cry in the ears of our philanthropic millionaires all that might be done for this country by bringing its best brains to consider the material things that go to the making of a good home!
THE END
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