Of course, some of our food, such as apples and other ripe fruits, and celery and lettuce and other green vegetables, we can eat raw and digest quite well; but we should be careful to see that they have been thoroughly washed with water that we know to be pure. Grocers often have a careless way of putting fruit and vegetables out upon open stands in front of the shop, or in open boxes or baskets inside the store, and leaving them there all day. This is very dangerous, because dust from the street, which contains horse manure and all sorts of germs, may blow in upon them; flies, which have been eating garbage or feeding at the mouths of sewers, may come in and crawl over them. You ought to be very sure that anything that you are going to eat raw, or without thorough cooking, has been well washed. And you ought to ask your mother to speak to your grocer, if he is careless in this way, and have him keep his fruit and vegetables, as well as sugar and crackers and beans and dried fruit, either under glass or well screened from flies and dust. More important than almost anything else in good cookery is to keep the food and the kitchen and the dishes and your hands perfectly clean all the way through, so that nothing that will upset your digestion can get into the food. After things are well cooked, it is very important that they should be nicely served on clean dishes, on a clean table cloth, with polished knives and shining spoons and forks. This means not only that everything about the table and the food will be perfectly clean and wholesome, but that you will enjoy eating it a great deal more. And when you enjoy your food, you remember, your stomach can _secrete_ the juice that is needed to digest it, very much faster and better than when, as you say, you are just "poking it down." If you have a school kitchen and a lunch room, you can learn the best way of cooking and serving things; and then, perhaps, you can do these same things at home and be a real help. Most children are fond of trying to cook, and I am glad that they are. Everyone, boys and girls both, should know how to cook simple things. Perhaps some day you will be stranded, like Robinson Crusoe, on a desert island! Perhaps the rest of the family may be sick. How nice it would be for you to be able to prepare breakfast for them. I know a family where the youngest boy often rises early and gets breakfast for five. He can fry the bacon and boil the eggs and make the coffee and mush and biscuit just as nicely as his mother can; and he takes pride in it and enjoys it. Cooking is what we call an art. Everyone, of course, can learn to do it; but some people can do it much better than others, just as some boys and girls can draw better than others. I hope some of you will be what we might call "artist cooks." Take pride in the art and learn all that you can about it. There are so many things a cook should know.