Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, August 1899: Volume LVVarious
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, August 1899: Volume LV
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
While the number of kitchen gardens is increasing there are yet many
localities where the good seed has not taken root; no better work in
village or town could enlist the faithful service of King's Daughters
or of societies for Christian Endeavor. An inexpensive outfit of
kitchen-garden utensils can easily be procured and the work begun.
When a class is ready to graduate from the kitchen garden the
voluntary service of half a dozen notable housekeepers, who will give
the simple lessons in cooking once a week, will yield a most
satisfactory harvest. The unconscious tuition of the cultivated house
mother is often of greater value than all else. A little girl of
eleven years given such opportunities enthusiastically exclaimed,
"I've taught my mother how to make bread!" The mother, a peasant woman
from across the sea, had passed her childhood and youth in the fields,
and, like many of her class, had received no training for the
responsibilities of motherhood. To the large number of foreigners, who
are constantly seeking homes in our free land, the privileges of the
kitchen garden and the free cooking school would prove an inestimable
blessing. When housework shall take its proper place among the
professions, the chaos which now abounds in a majority of American
homes will be forever banished. In home making, regarded as one of the
noblest objects of every woman's life--in fact, _the_ object whenever
possible--lies the hope of the future. To this end God speed the
kitchen garden and the cooking school!
EDUCATION.--The public school and kindergarten, free libraries, art
galleries and museums, cheap literature, and compulsory education laws
would seem, to the casual observer, to leave little need for the
philanthropist in the field of education. A philosopher of to-day
looks forward to the time when "the object of all free education shall
be the emancipation of the individual," and to the time "when general
education shall be supplemented by special schools for the special
vocations of life."
The trend of the present system of education may be in that direction
and the prospect more or less hopeful, but that the schools and other
opportunities mentioned do not now reach all who need instruction is
demonstrated by the success of the various clubs, classes, and
lectures which form so important a part of the humanitarian
associations of to-day. Everywhere are found men and women of middle
age who can not read or write, who were denied even a common-school
education in youth; to reach such as these and make them not ashamed
to accept and make use of the privileges for which they have secretly
longed is practical philanthropy. Among the foreign-born population
many children are early forced to help earn the necessities of life,
and are taken from school as soon as the law will allow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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