TRAINING HOUSEWIVES—A HINT FROM NORWAY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 30, 25 July 1891, Page 206

TRAINING HOUSEWIVES—A HINT FROM NORWAY.

A regular system of education in baking, spinning, dairy work, and such like useful accomplishments for young women is about to be instituted in Norway. • The Society for the Welfare of Norway ’ is going to establish numerous training colleges all over the country. At present the most grominent of these is situated at some distance from ’hristiania, and appears upon outside inspection to be simply an ordinary farmhouse. Inside everything is very plain, but very neat and clean. There are only six pupils taken, although the number of applicants has been ten times greater than the accommodation. The girls are divided into two sections, and all the work of the day is mapped out. Each girl is called by a number, and while number one is in the kitchen, number two is making the room tidy, and number three is attending to the dairy. The other section at the same time is busy sewing, spinning, cutting-out, making clothes, etc. As sections and numbers change week by week, every girl gets each particular work in turn. Dinner is served at twelve o’clock, and then a few hours are devoted to science, botany, and the higher branches of education, for though no girl is admitted before she has completed her eighteenth year, still, as they are mostly drawn from the peasant class, they have not always advanced very far in their scholastic education. Physical exercise is not forgotten, as the garden is kept entirely in order by the girls themselves. The pay, including everything, is just over 4s a week, and two of the pupils are free. The training lasts a year.