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As showing the rapid progress made in England during the past few years, I quote the following figures : Girls taught cookery in 1886, 12,438 from 643 schools. In London alone in 1897 about 33,000 girls from the Board schools were instructed. Under the London School Board there are 170 cookery centres. These schools are usually built in connection with existing primary schools; manual instruction for boys and laundry-work for girls being also provided for at the majority of the centres. Children from outside schools may attend the Board's classes upon payment of a fee of 4s. for the course of twenty-two lessons. Prizes are awarded for regular and punctual attendance. By resolution of the Board, 7th May, 1896, all girls in Standard IV. are required to attend twenty-two lessons in the first course of instruction in cookery at one of the Board's centres. All girls in Standard V. are required to attend twenty-two lessons in the second course, each course extending over a period of six months. The morning classes at the cookery centres commence at 9 o'clock; demonstration is continued until 10; first practice, 10 to 11; second practice, 11 to 12. The last practice to include dishingup, cleansing utensils, and clearing away. Afternoon classes commence at 2 o'clock ; demonstration until 3; practice of all girls to 4.80, as in the morning course. Girls who attend cookery and laundry centres are required to go direct from their homes to the centre, and the instructress is responsible for properly marking the attendances of each girl. Duplicate registers are kept, as in the case of manual instructors, C or L being marked in the circle opposite each girl's name, one register being forwarded to the head teacher of the school. One of the Education Department requirements is that the equipment of the kitchens shall be appropriate, aud that the stoves and other appliances shall be such as are usually found in the homes of the working-people of the neighbourhood. Large fireplaces are discouraged. Cookery by gas is allowed to be taught, but only as an additional means of cooking. Although gas-stoves are now freely used, they are never likely to entirely supersede the colonial oven or range. The following is the method of instruction under the London School Board, several centres of which I visited: (1.) Each lesson opens with questions upon plain cookery. (2.) The demonstration then follows for one hour, during which there is no dictation. (3.) The class is again questioned upon the day's lesson. (4.) The class is then divided into two detachments, the first practising one hour; the second are for the first half-hour copying the day's work into a note-book, and the second half-hour in dishing up such dishes as are ready, making sauces, &c, washing-up, cleaning knives, scrubbing, &c. The order of this work is reversed each week for the same class. Beceipt-books, strongly bound, are provided for each class. The food cooked is usually sold at cost price, cheap dinners are provided for the school-children, and in many cases the teaching staff of the school remain for meals. The text - book used by the London School Board is " Instruction in Cookery," by Miss Briggs, the Board's superintendent of cookery, published by Charles Straker and Sons, Bishopsgate Avenue, E.G. London School Board. Syllabus for First Cookery Course. Lesson I . —First rules for cookery, vegetable-soup, egg-snow for invalids, eggs cooked in two ways. Lesson 2. —Boiled and steamed potatoes, baked bread-pudding. Lesson 3. —Shepherd's pie, baking-powder, boiled suet-pudding. Lesson 4. —Boast meat, and rules for dry- roasting; Yorkshire pudding; |to clarify dripping. Lesson s. —Boiled fish and sauce, fish-cakes. Lesson 6. —Pea-soup, seed- or currant-cake. Lesson 7. —Minced meat with mashed potatoes, coffee. Lesson B. —Boiled meat, caper- or onion-sauce, rice-pudding. Lesson 9. —Leg-of-beef stew, rock-cakes. Lesson 10. —Meat-pie and patties, short pastry, Hunter pudding, fruit-pie for practice. Lesson 11. —Fish fried in batter, scones. Lesson 12. —Potato-soup, bread with yeast. Lesson 13. —Meat-pudding, brown bread or baking-powder bread. Lesson 14. —Baked haddock, beef-tea, porridge. Lesson 15. —Toad-in-the-hole, pancakes, gruel, fruit baked in batter for practice. Lesson 16. —Haricot beans (either way), baked potatoes, roly-poly pudding. Lesson 17. —Irish stew, boiled greens, poached eggs. Lesson 18. —Lentil-soup, sausage-rolls (flaky pastry), fried sausage. Lesson 19. —Liver and bacon or tripe and onions, tapioca- or sago-pudding, bacon and eggs for practice. Lesson 20. —Broiled chops or steak, baked dumplings or turnovers, cocoa. Reserve Dishes. —Stewed beef and rice, Cornish pasties, boiled cauliflower, barley-water, lemonade. Season Dishes. —Plum-pudding, mince-pies, orange-marmalade, pickled cabbage, salads, jam. Second Course. Lesson 1 (Invalid Cookery). —Steamed fish, invalid's jelly, cup of arrowroot or rice-water. Lesson 2. —Stewed rabbit, gingerbread. Lesson 3. —Savoury cod, bread-and-butter pudding. Lesson 4. —Stewed lentils, cornflour cake. Lesson s. —Meat-cake, rice-snowballs, orange- or lemon-sauce. Lesson 6. —-Haricot mutton, fried potatoes (cooked or uncooked). Lesson 7.— Veal-pie (flaky pastry), gingerbread-pudding. Lesson B. —Stuffed mackerel or herrings, fig- or sultana-pudding.

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