The Renaissance of Girls' Education in England: A Record of Fifty Years' ProgressZimmern, Alice
History
The Renaissance of Girls' Education in England: A Record of Fifty Years' Progress
Zimmern, Alice
Women -- Education -- Great Britain
‘The laundry work is taught on simple and common-sense principles, the
only extra aid to speed and efficiency being a wringer and mangle, and,
as these are now so frequently found in the homes of the more thrifty
housewives, it is well that the girls should be taught to use them
properly. The processes of steeping, washing, boiling, rinsing, blueing,
wringing, drying, folding, mangling are all thoroughly taught. The
washing of flannels and woollens, a part of laundry work which is
frequently very badly done by laundry women, receives special attention,
and starching and ironing are exceedingly well done by the girls at the
conclusion of their course of training.
‘The girls are taught the market value of foods. In some of the schools
special arrangements are made for this. At Battersea they are taken out
to purchase meat, greengrocery, etc. When the girls cannot be taken out
to market, they are sometimes allowed to purchase from the teacher in
charge of the stores. They are taught to compare prices, to judge of the
freshness and quality of commodities, to expend a given sum to the best
advantage in the cheapest market, and how to prepare and cook their
meals in the shortest time possible.’
The fee for the complete course is £1, 10s., or 7s. 6d. per month, and
this includes the cost of all books and materials. The greater part of
the pupils come from the elementary schools, but surely they are not the
only girls who need such teaching. Many pupils leave the high schools at
fourteen or fifteen to live at home in somewhat straitened
circumstances. To them such a training as this would indeed be a boon.
It would even be worth the sacrifice of the last six months at school,
since they must in any case leave without getting the best it can
afford, the teaching in the fifth and sixth forms. Girls attending
second grade schools, who naturally leave early, would find these
domestic economy courses an admirable means of transition between school
and home life; while those, whose bent lies in this direction, can go on
to the training schools, and either become teachers of these subjects,
or earn a living by their practical application. In fact, the domestic
economy school is fast helping to raise the home arts into their proper
educational place, as affording one among many suitable careers for
women, no longer the Cinderella among occupations, who sits among the
ashes, because the prince has not yet come to claim her. The neglect of
the middle class to use these schools is another instance of their
proverbial apathy; meantime, these good things are ready for them as
soon as they will take the trouble to grasp them. Of course there is no
reason why such teaching should be given free, except to a minority.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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