Ireland In The New CenturyPlunkett, Horace Curzon, Sir
History
Ireland In The New Century
Plunkett, Horace Curzon, Sir
Ireland -- Economic conditions; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 1901-1910; Irish question
The establishment of such a system and the task of making it operative
and effective in the country is beset with difficulties. The teacher
difficulty confronts us again, and also that of making pupils and their
parents understand that there are other objects in domestic training
than that of qualifying for domestic service. A corps of instructresses
in domestic economy is, however, already abroad throughout the country,
nearly all the County Councils having already appointed them. Some of
these teachers, who have made the best contributions towards the as yet
only partially determined question of the ultimate aim and present
possibilities of a course of instruction in hygiene, laundry work,
cookery, the management of children, sewing, and so forth, have told me
that the demand in rural districts seems to be chiefly for the class of
instruction which may lead to success in town life. I have heard of a
class of girls in a Connaught village who would not be content with
knowing the accomplishments of a farmer's wife until they had learned
how to make asparagus soup and cook sweetbreads. No doubt they had read
of the way things are done in the kitchens of the great. This tendency
should never be encouraged, but neither can it always be inflexibly
repressed without endangering the main objects of the class.
Women teachers of poultry-keeping, dairying, domestic science and
kindred subjects are trained at the Munster Institute, Cork, and the
School of Domestic Economy, Kildare Street, Dublin, both of which have
been equipped to meet the needs of the new programme. The want of
teachers, and not any lack of interest on the part of the country, has
alone prevented all the counties from adopting schemes for encouraging
improvement in all these branches of work. I may add that more than one
hundred and fifty of these qualified teachers are now at work under
County Committees.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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