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Otago Witness, Issue 1244, 2 October 1875, Page 19

Home Interests.

PRACTICAL EDUCATION FOR GIRLS.

The exercise of knowledge should accompany its acquisition. Tha correctness of this theory is recognized by the leading educators in this country. Hence, our Cornell and Vassar : hence, also our agricultural colleges with farm and-gar-den attachment. Now let me st«te my proposition in full ; If I should say right out thg.t giils should bq taught cooking and sewing, and such! things, at school, some of you, unless restrained by a cultivated sense of propriety, would laugh in my face ; but if in more highsounding phrase I say that girls should be afforded facilities for acquiring a technological education — for becoming mistresses of the common arcs which they are expected to make use of on arriving at maturity — I may, perhaps, keep your ears while I convey explanation and argument together.

Being a woman, and addresssing women, I must be allowed to handle the question in a womanly way ; and I begin naturally (for a womaa), at the wrong end, by asking, Why not ? If girls who are expected to become women must cook, and sew, and take care of babies, and have charge of the business of the business of the household, why should not their education be directly adapted t> > fit them for theso duties ] Ido not mean that our public schools should be converted into bake shops, or shirt factories, or anything quite so extreme as that — at least not immediately. To illustrate precisely what I do mean, let us take the science of chemistry. Chemistry i.3 now taught in mir high schools, after a fashion ; but — and I will leave it to you, girls, to say if 1 am not correct — when you have "gone through " it in the usual style, and passed your examinations creditably, you know nothing of chemistry in its application to the economy of the kitchen. I think I would have no difficulty in puzzling an ordinary graduate in the chenvstry of a common meal. I remember to have asked one once, why ehe used so ?a and cream of tartar in ( biscuit, and the result of the combination in the proportion of two to one being salt. She couldn't tell why salt would not an«wer the same purpose You lauah, eh ? How many of you can answer the question ? Yet, you have all studied chemistry. You have in mind some absolute formula*, but tho principles of things, the whys and wherefores you have been allowed to overlook almost entirely. This is what I complain of, that girls— a,nd if I were talking to boys I should include them too — are not taught to apply the knowledge they acquire. 0 I have in mind a young gentleman who had passed even through Mb Freshman year at College, and could not measure the grain in his father's granary, nor the acres in his field. I might mention another who, liaving graduated, couldn't write a fair hand, nor construct a sentence without being at fault in orthography or grammar. I have seen some girls to whom these strictures would apply with equal fitnessii, and I am sorry to say that the same kiad of neglect on the part of the teachers, and the same kind of indifference on the part of pupils as is indicated in these examples, are too I generally prevalent. They ought not to exist at all. Teachers should not allow such pupils to pass, nor should any pupil be satisfied to pass in such slipshod style. The teacher who cannot awaken interest and ambition, or who will allow pupils to evade the studious part of study, is not fit for the position.

But I am digressing. I spoke of chemistry, and wish to insist upon its thorough practical teaching in girls' schools. Why ? Because no science so directly affects health and life. The human stomach is a chemical laboratory, in which the food we eat is analysed or compounded, and from which its oonatituent elements aye disemgii to th« performance »i their

functions in the sustenance and develop ment of this human organism. What we shall eat, then, is a vital question. ] know that it is usually left for the palate alone to settle, and I am not one of those who would altogether ignore the palate ; but it is not alwaj's a safe guide. If if were, we should never recover wasted health by taking nauseous medicine. Neither do I belong to the school miscalled "hygienic," that goes everything on "Graham gems and stewed fruit.° Man i 3 put down in the books whose authority JI recogn'ze as an omnivorous animal — he was intended to eat everything, and that he can not is the result of a miseducation of his tastes and an abnormal condition of his system. Those extra careful people, whose three times daily thought is how to avoid eating finything good, sind whose perpetual tor" ment is indigestible food and a dyspeptic stomach, have at some time and in some way grossly violated some law with which every child should be early acquainted. They have brought upon themselves a misery from which the escape lies by a tedious route. I can do no more than commend them to the care of the doctors, and heaven ; and remind others that '•prevention is better than cure." If I had my way about it I think I should forthwith order the preparation of textbook on chemistry, especially for girls, and I would have its teaching accompanied by experiments beyond what may be called hygienic chemistry, and that is the chemistry of health. Ido not know that it is necessary or worth while for ordinary girls to pursue the science.

The girl educated according to my notion would not only know something, but, what I consider more important, she would know ivhat to do with her knowledge. She would be able to prepare not only a palatable meal for her husband, but one adapted to his physical necessities.