The Chemistry of CookeryWilliams, W. Mattieu (William Mattieu)
Science
The Chemistry of Cookery
Williams, W. Mattieu (William Mattieu)
Cooking
My reasons for this introductory digression will be easily understood,
as this view of the doings of man and the doings of Nature displays
fundamentally the business of human education, so far as the physical
proceedings and physical welfare of mankind are concerned.
It clearly points out two well-marked natural divisions of such
education—education or training in the movements to be made, and
education in a knowledge of the consequences of such movements—_i.e._
in a knowledge of the forces of Nature which actually do the work when
man has suitably arranged the materials.
The education ordinarily given to apprentices in the workshop, or
the field, or the studio—or, as relating to my present subject, the
kitchen—is the first of these, the second and equally necessary being
simply and purely the teaching of physical science as applied to the
arts.
I cannot proceed any further without a protest against a very general
(so far as this country is concerned) misuse of a now very popular
term, a misuse that is rather surprising, seeing that it is accepted
by scholars who have devoted the best of their intellectual efforts to
the study of words. I refer to the word _technical_ as applied in the
designation ‘technical education.’
So long as our workshops are separated from our science schools
and colleges, it is most desirable, in order to avoid continual
circumlocution, to have terms that shall properly distinguish between
the work of the two, and admit of definite and consistent use. The two
words are ready at hand, and, although of Greek origin, have become, by
analogous usage, plain simple English. I mean the words _technical_ and
_technological_.
The Greek noun _techne_ signifies an art, trade, or profession, and our
established usage of this root is in accordance with its signification.
Therefore, ‘technical education’ is a suitable and proper designation
of the training which is given to apprentices, &c., in the strictly
technical details of their trades, arts, or professions—_i.e._ in the
skilful moving of things. When we require a name for the science or the
philosophy of anything, we obtain it by using the Greek root _logos_,
and appending it in English form to the Greek name of the general
subject, as geology, the science of the earth; anthropology, the
science of man; biology, the science of life, &c.
Why not then follow this general usage, and adopt ‘technology’ as
the science of trades, arts, or professions, and thereby obtain
consistent and convenient terms to designate the two divisions of
education—technical education, that given in the workshop, &c., and
technological education, that which _should be_ given as supplementary
to all such technical education?
In accordance with this, the present work will be a contribution to
the technology of cookery, or to the technological education of cooks,
whose technical education is quite beyond my reach.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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