But the morning is getting on, and we hurry downstairs to the laundry, perhaps the most striking of all the class-rooms, a glass partition shutting off the washing-room, with its large teak troughs where a busy set of girls are at work, from the ironing-room, fitted with long solid tables on which blouses of many shapes and colours are being ironed into crisp freshness. A special feature of the room is the white-tiled screen keeping the heat of the ironing stove, with its dozens of irons, from the rest of the room, while the height and good ventilation keep the room fresh and pleasant even in hot weather. We turn away from this vision of dainty whiteness to be in time to see the last class we are to visit this morning, the “housewifery” class, which is conducting a “spring-cleaning” in one of the social rooms of the polytechnic, which lends itself admirably for the purpose of teaching the girls how to turn out a well-furnished sitting-room. The housewifery lessons are a great feature of the Domestic Economy Schools, we hear, and include the whole routine of household work apart from actual cooking, washing, and dressmaking, these being, as we have seen, taught separately, so that girls who have gone through the course ought not to find themselves at a loss in any department of housekeeping, the whole series of lessons in each department being made to dovetail one into the other. It is nearly one o’clock now, and Miss Mitchell asks us to come into the dining-room, where the tables are just laid for dinner, and we find the housekeeping-student in charge, lifting dishes on to “hot-plates” as they come down from the cookery schools, with the group of girls who are told off to help her giving final touches to the tables, these being laid with pretty blue and white crockery, and with here and there bunches of flowers which have been brought by one or other of the pupils. The teachers aim at having the tables laid as nicely as possible and at giving the girls a high standard of neatness and daintiness to take back with them to their own homes. Presently a bell rings and the girls file in and take their places at three long tables, with a teacher and a student at the head and foot of each, the other students-in-training having a table to themselves. We feel rather intrusive as we watch them take their places, and, turning out of the room, ask Miss Mitchell to spare us yet a few minutes to answer some of the questions that are in our minds.