Women Workers in Seven Professions Part 5

Teachers in physically defective schools can also see the need for prevention of defect rather than its mere alleviation. The more usual forms of defect are missing limbs, tuberculous troubles (notably in joints), heart cases, paralysis, cases of ch.o.r.ea, and cases of general debility. The list must not be taken as complete, for there are, of course, various unusual forms of defect too. It sometimes happens that after a stay of some time in a physically defective school, a child becomes so much better that it is able to return to the greater strain of an ordinary school; on the other hand, it is often apparent, that if certain children had been admitted earlier to the physically defective school, their particular trouble might have been greatly minimised, if not altogether avoided. What then appears to be needed is an intermediary type of school to which children might be drafted who are not as yet absolutely defective, but who are liable to become so. Children of tubercular tendencies, who should be guarded against falls or blows more carefully than normal children; those highly-strung nervous children who, if exposed to the strain of ordinary school life run the risk of ch.o.r.ea; children suffering from the after-effects of diseases such as rheumatic or scarlet fever, who need particularly to avoid over-exertion or too violent exercise; children of such marked general debility that their power of resisting disease is abnormally low--all these, if neglected, tend to become qualified candidates for the physically defective schools. If they could attend a school designed to suit their needs, they would in many cases be quite able to return, after varying periods, to their places in the ordinary schools. The open-air schools are an attempt to meet this need on the very best lines, but there are far too many of these border-line children for the available accommodation. If the great expense entailed by new schools of this description be considered, it seems not unreasonable, while waiting for them, to allow the admission of these children to the invalid schools already working, by simply making the term "physically defective" elastic enough to include a latent as well as a developed defect. Whatever the apparent expense of such measures may be, any extension of the preventive side of this work cannot but be a real economy.[2]

There is just one other point for the consideration of women who think of taking up work in special schools. They should be thoroughly strong and healthy, or they will prove unequal to a strain which tells at times even on the strongest. But to women of good health who possess the right temperament, these schools offer a field of useful and congenial work.

[Footnote 1: Something in this direction will be achieved by the new Act, to which, however, there are counterbalancing grave objections which cannot be considered here. [EDITOR.]]

[Footnote 2: Open-air schools, and school sleeping camps such as those established experimentally in various urban slum-districts, are other efforts to meet the needs of physically defective children. Teachers in open-air schools in provincial towns, work under approximately similar conditions to those described by Mrs Thomas. [Editor.]]

VI

THE TEACHING OF GYMNASTICS

No school of any importance is considered properly equipped unless the staff includes a gymnastic and games mistress. Several systems of gymnastics are practised in England, but the Swedish system is steadily proving its superiority; so much is this felt that a number of teachers who have previously taken a two years' course of training in some other system, are at the present time taking, or have just completed, a second two years' course in the Swedish system. As long ago as 1878 the London School Board introduced the Swedish system into its schools, but it was not till 1885 that the first physical training college was opened in this country, and this was for women only. In 1903 this system was adopted for the navy, and in 1906 for the army; it has also been adopted in the Government schools and Training Colleges, as well as in all the princ.i.p.al private schools and colleges for girls, and in many boys' schools, including, among others, Eton, Winchester, Clifton, and Repton. The following remarks, therefore, apply only to the Swedish system.

Until 1885, the rationally trained teacher of gymnastics was unknown in England, and the physical training of the girls in this country was monopolised by dancing mistresses and drill sergeants, most of whom were ignorant of the laws which govern the human body. In that year Madame Osterberg started a Physical Training College for women students at Hampstead, the college being removed to Dartford Heath, Kent, in 1895. Since then similar inst.i.tutions have been opened at Bedford, Erdington, Chelsea, etc., and there is a growing army of women qualified to teach gymnastics and games, and in many cases dancing and swimming. These trained teachers have studied Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene; they have themselves experienced what they teach others; they have been trained to observe, and deal gently and carefully with growing girlhood. They have also studied deformities such as spinal curvature, round shoulders, and flat feet, and are able to take all such cases under their special care.

The course of training lasts from two to three years, and the cost in a residential college, is about 100 a year. To ensure success as teachers, students should be tactful, observant, and sympathetic; they should be medically fit, and physically suited to the work, and should produce evidence of a good general education. The requirements of the colleges vary as to educational qualification, some being satisfied with a school-leaving certificate while others demand Matriculation.

This raising of the standard is a step in the right direction and may hasten the time when the gymnastic teacher will be thought worthy of a University degree or diploma.

The training includes theoretical as well as practical work, and the idea which used to be prevalent, is now practically exploded, that a girl who could not pa.s.s examinations but who was fairly good at gymnastics or games might make a good gymnastic teacher. The theoretical subjects include Physiology, Hygiene, Anatomy, Theory of Movements, Psychology, and a certain amount of Pathology; whilst the practical side includes Educational Gymnastics and Teaching, Remedial Gymnastics and Ma.s.sage, Games (hockey, cricket, lacrosse, lawn tennis, net-ball, and gymnasium games), Swimming and Dancing. Dancing is becoming more and more, a necessary part of the equipment for the successful gymnastic teacher, who must be able to teach the ordinary ball-room dances as well as Morris and country dances.

A typical week's work in the second year's course in one of the colleges includes six hours' Gymnastics; five hours' Remedial Gymnastics, and five hours' actual treatment under supervision, of patients in the clinic; six hours' Anatomy, two hours' Physiology, two hours' Hygiene, two hours' Vaulting, three and a half hours' Dancing.

In addition to this, four afternoons (from 2 to 4 P.M.) are devoted to games; cla.s.s singing-lessons are given twice a week for half an hour, in addition to a quarter of an hour's practice every day, and each student teaches in the elementary schools three half hours a week, and also gets some practice in the high school. Add to all this the time required for private study, and it will be seen that the work is fairly strenuous and that none but strong, healthy girls should undertake it.

After the course of training the gymnastic teacher usually takes a post in a school, and having had a few years' experience, may then become an organiser or inspector to an education committee, a trainer in an elementary training college or physical training college, the head of the gymnastic department of a school clinic, or she may prefer to start a private practice, holding cla.s.ses, treating cases of deformity, and also acting as visiting gymnastic teacher or games-coach to schools in the neighbourhood.

The rate of remuneration varies according to the kind of work undertaken; the initial salary in schools is usually 60 to 80 per annum resident, or 100 to 120 non-resident. Organisers and inspectors command a much higher salary; the three Government inspectors start at 200 rising to 400 with first-cla.s.s travelling expenses, and the four woman-organisers employed by the London County Council Education Committee start at 175, rising by 10 a year to 240 plus actual travelling expenses. Some women do well in private practice, making from 200 to 300 a year. The salaries of the gymnastic teachers in the London County Council secondary schools are fixed at 130 a year with no possibility of advancement, and, though this may compare favourably with the initial salaries of other teachers on the staff, it must be remembered that the teaching life of a gymnastic teacher is shorter and there are no headmistress-ships to which to look forward. The few "plums" of the profession are the inspectorships of the Government and of the more important education committees. For the latter, women have often to compete with men, and even in cases where both men and women inspectors are employed--the men doing the same work in the boys' schools as the women do in the girls'--the men's salaries are considerably higher, despite the fact that most women give up professional work on marriage, either voluntarily or compulsorily, and have therefore a shorter time in which to recover the cost of their training, whereas if they do not marry, they have to make provision for old age and in many cases to contribute to the support of others besides themselves.

With regard to this employment of women after marriage, there would seem to be no reason why the princ.i.p.als or a.s.sistants of colleges or inst.i.tutes, or the women with private practices should not continue their work; but in schools, even where the terms of the appointment do not demand resignation on marriage, it is not customary for married teachers to be employed.

Up to the present, the supply of trained gymnastic teachers has scarcely satisfied the demand, and fresh openings are from time to time created. When physical exercises were made compulsory in all the elementary schools, the cla.s.s teacher had and still has, to give this instruction to her cla.s.s, but there has been an increasing demand for organisers to teach the elementary school teacher and superintend her work. This has also led to specialist teachers being appointed to all the elementary training colleges and pupil teachers' centres. Then came medical inspection, and with it the need for school clinics, which could not be complete without a department for treating curvatures, flat feet, etc., and giving breathing exercises, especially after the removal of adenoids. Though these clinics are only in the experimental stage they are sure to expand, and it is expected that a large number of trained gymnastic teachers will be required for them. Further it is possible, and may be found desirable, that specialist teachers should be appointed for groups of elementary schools, so relieving the cla.s.s teachers of this part of their work.

Large secondary and private schools often appoint two, three, or four trained teachers who are jointly responsible for gymnastics, games, dancing, swimming, and the treatment of deformities throughout the school. Besides all these openings a considerable number of gymnastic teachers find work in the colonies, especially in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

To band together the teachers of Swedish gymnastics and to guard their interests generally, the Ling a.s.sociation was founded in 1899. Though it is open to men and women, very few men have joined, as the number of men with the necessary qualifications is very small. Members must have trained for at least two years at a recognised college, and it was not till 1912 that the first training college for men was opened in England.

With a view to standardising the training and diplomas of gymnastic teachers, the Ling a.s.sociation in 1904 started a diploma-examination.

Though the syllabus drawn up is practically the same as those used in the different colleges, most of the colleges still grant their own diplomas at the end of the course.

It is hardly possible at present, to specify the usual age of retirement for gymnastic teachers, but when a woman becomes too old for regular school teaching she can organise, supervise, and inspect, or continue to practise remedial work which includes ma.s.sage.

Most of the gymnastic teachers who come within the scope of the Insurance Act have joined the University, Secondary and Technical Teachers' Provident Society.

VII

THE TEACHING OF DOMESTIC SUBJECTS

There are several reasons why instruction in the domestic arts and in the management of a house has not until quite recently formed part of the curriculum in girls' secondary schools. In the first years of the existence of these schools, no handicraft was encouraged except needlework, and this was soon almost crowded out of the time-table. It was a.s.sumed that household management was taught by the mother. There was a second a.s.sumption made even more confidently than the first, that a well-informed young woman with an active brain would find no difficulty in arranging her domestic affairs. This theory was founded on still another a.s.sumption--that there would always be on hire a sufficiency of servants already well trained for their work.

It is obvious nowadays that the mistresses of the first two decades of high-school teaching, being the first college-bred women, were suffering from a reaction against domestic interests, and the manner in which these had absorbed the old-fashioned woman. Their best pupils were at once destined for college; they were considered too good for mere domestic life, and were prepared for careers, mostly for teaching. This tendency was naturally accentuated by the fact that all mistresses were single women, with little prospect of any but a celibate life.

In the earlier stages of girls' education, then, it was the teacher who urged the promising girl to have a career; but the more recent development is that the parents, hara.s.sed by increasing economic pressure, and encouraged by the instances they meet of successful professional women, press more and more strongly for their girls to be educated for professions, whether they are exceptionally gifted or not. It is recognised in almost all grades of the middle cla.s.s that the chance of a daughter marrying, and, further, the chance of her marriage being an a.s.sured provision for her maintenance throughout life, is by no means a certainty.

These considerations must militate against the appearance of domestic subjects in the school time-table, but there are others working in exactly the opposite direction. These are the increase in house rent and general rise in prices which make economy in domestic affairs, and good management, more valued; the dearth of servants; and the decay of the old traditions of housekeeping. Another factor is the new cult of hygiene, and increased interest in diet, shown especially by the inhabitants of large towns, who bewail their lack of energy and fitness.

If the home is to establish itself as an acknowledged success in modern conditions, it ought to be run by women with brains. It is now becoming acknowledged that the work needs the application of the scientific method of thinking. It may be true that home-making in the non-material sense is an art, but housekeeping nowadays is a science; and so much a science that a woman who has the chance of making herself an expert will be tempted to make housekeeping a career, and to undertake the job on a much larger scale than is needed in the ordinary house.

Thus, while there was practically no teaching of domestic subjects in girls' secondary schools until about seven years ago, a demand for teachers of the kind has sprung up very recently, and is rapidly increasing.

The headmistress anxious to undertake something of the sort has had many difficulties to face in the immediate past. The only teachers of domestic arts whom she could engage had received a very different education from the other members of her staff. If their whole time were not taken up with teaching their subject, they had few or no subsidiary subjects to offer, nor were they prepared for those curiously mingled clerical and pastoral duties which fall to the lot of a form mistress. In general education they might, indeed, be obviously below the girls in the upper forms, whose general culture had been sedulously cultivated for years. If teachers of this kind were, nevertheless, not to be kept for selected "stupid girls," it was possible (1) to introduce domestic work of the simple handicraft nature into the middle school, leaving it out of the upper school where there was a greater pressure on the time-table, or (2) to organise a post-school domestic course for girls who were not preparing for a profession.

The type of woman offering herself as a teacher in domestic arts has meanwhile been changing and developing, owing to the fact that a marked advance has taken place in the facilities for training. The minimum qualifications now required by most education authorities are diplomas for cookery, laundry-work, and housewifery, granted by a training school recognised by the Board of Education. It is advisable to take a fuller course which includes needlework and dressmaking.

Most training schools for domestic arts provide a two or three year-course, according to the subjects taken. The three-year course, including cookery, laundry-work, housewifery, dressmaking, and needlework, costs about 75. Scholarships are offered both by the training schools and by public bodies. These cover the whole normal period of training, and an extension course for scientific study.

The subjects included are the principles and processes involved in cookery, laundry-work, and household management, the last comprising such diverse matters as the selection and furnishing of various types of houses, repairing furniture, the choice and care of household linens, simple upholstery, management of income, first-aid, home-nursing, and the care of infants and young children. Many training-schools arrange for their students to gain experience in a creche or similar inst.i.tution, and to visit homes of various types. Practical experience is gained in housekeeping and catering, superintending the arrangements for meals, ordering stores and keeping accounts. Voice production and blackboard drawing are also taught, while science is studied concurrently with the above. The course in science embraces some Theoretical and Practical Chemistry, Physics, Physiology, Hygiene (personal and school hygiene and preventive measures), and the Theory and Practice of Education. Domestic Science students gain teaching experience not only in the various departments of the training-school, but also in elementary and secondary schools; happily the training is the same for those intending to take up either elementary or secondary teaching.

Thus it is seen that the present-day teacher of household arts is much more fitted to train the well-educated girl to organise household matters, than was her predecessor. Not only is manipulative skill acquired, but scientific reasons for processes and methods are outlined, and improvements are suggested. There is, however, still the danger that the student's training in science has been so subordinated to the acquirement of manipulative skill that her knowledge of scientific facts is not sufficiently based on scientific training and method.

Much, then, is to be urged in favour of the woman with a science degree taking courses in domestic arts, but it is essential for her to attain a high standard of practical work. It has sometimes been found that a very academic and scientific method of treatment has tended to lower the standard of manipulative skill. Nevertheless qualified graduates find themselves, at the moment, greatly in demand. The economical headmistress must always be on the look out for an acquisition to her staff who will, like Count Smorltork's politics, "surprise in herself many branches." If the headmistress can solve her difficulty about her domestic arts teacher by engaging a college-bred woman, with a degree to put on the prospectus, all sorts of ordinary subjects for her odd hours and undertaking to teach cooking as well, she will jump at the chance, and pay her 10 to 20 more salary than the ordinary a.s.sistant-mistress. She will economise greatly by the arrangement. If she has some amount of money to back her schemes, and a large school to administer, she will prefer two people to one composite one. But she will beg them to collaborate and to work together. She will not expect the woman with the science degree and a brief subsequent training in the arts to have the manipulative skill of the one who has done something like one thousand hours of actual practice, according to the prescription of the Board of Education. She will ask the former to show the girls how modern science is connected with the modern house, and how the scientific way of thinking helps in keeping a house, as it does in keeping one's own health and fitness.

During the past five years one secondary school after another has taken up Domestic Arts as a school subject. The initiative usually comes from the headmistress, and is a matter of personal judgment, so that the introduction is still an experiment on trial, and the method of trial varies. Before giving some indication of the methods tried, we must return to the demand for teachers. It will be clear from what has been said, that a science graduate who has studied and practised household arts and cooking, or a trained teacher of Domestic Arts who has also some science certificate and a high standard of general education, will at this moment command a higher salary than the ordinary secondary schoolmistress, and is practically certain of a post. But either of these individuals requires an unusually long period of training, for which most people have neither the time nor the spare capital.

One woman's college in London has started courses of its own in "Home Science and Economics," and awards a three-year certificate to its students; also a diploma for science graduates who take a year's course, and a certificate to Domestic Arts teachers who take a closely related year's course. This is King's College for Women, which has just obtained the formal approval of London University for its three years' curriculum. In a very short time arrangements will be made to grant a University Diploma to the students who have taken this course, the fee for which amounts to 30 guineas a session. A scholarship, covering the cost of tuition, is from time to time awarded to undergraduate students, and there is also a one-year post-graduate Gilchrist scholarship of 50 guineas. The name of "Household and Social Science" is recommended by the Royal Commissioners for the new co-ordination of subjects. Various American universities and colleges give diplomas of the same kind: and the New Zealand University has just initiated one. The three-year course at King's College for Women may possibly be modified by the University authorities: at present it consists of two years' training in various branches of pure science, and a third year in which these branches are applied to household matters of all kinds. For instance, the usual type of academic course of Inorganic, Organic, and Physical Chemistry gives place in the third year to the study of food, cooking utensils and cookers, soap and other cleansing materials, and woven materials. Biology and Physiology give place to household Bacteriology and Hygiene. Practice in Housewifery and Cooking occupies one day per week throughout the three years. A very important feature in this course is the introduction of Economics. As with the natural sciences, two years' study of ordinary Economics, chiefly industrial, is followed by a year of Economics applied to the household, in which an attempt is made to show the present and past relations of the household to society. King's College for Women is the first inst.i.tution in England to see the great importance of studying the connection of domestic life with the outside industrial world, instead of treating it as an isolated phenomenon.

This is the outline of the three-year course: students are encouraged to stay a fourth year for special work; the appointments which they take up at the end of three or four years are not always as teachers, but in various other vocations which need not be specified here. As teachers, the holders of these certificates are subject, of course, to a double fire of criticism. The science specialist thinks they do not know enough science, and points out that, beyond a few elementary facts in Chemistry, Physics, and Physiology soon picked up in an elementary training in these subjects, there stretches a region of very abstruse science which cannot be attacked except by specialists in Organic Chemistry, in the Physiology of Nutrition, and so on.

But it is now suggested that many scientific problems connected with domestic subjects are waiting for solution. If some of these were solved, they would bridge the gulf between the elementary and the abstruse, but they must show themselves of sufficient interest to investigators. Here is a field for work eminently suited to the scientific woman with a practical turn of mind. Meanwhile, the cookery diplomee thinks, often justifiably, that the new teachers have not had sufficient practice in the art of cooking. Criticism of this kind is inevitable whenever a new co-ordination of subjects is attempted, and it will keep the new arrangement on its trial until it can justify itself. The question at issue in this case, as probably readers will have divined if they are interested in the problem, is whether the whole method and tradition of teaching housekeeping ought not to be under revision, so that it may in a few years be a "subject" vastly different from the traditional handing-on and practising of receipts.

Once the barrier is broken down between the scientifically trained and the domestic woman, the whole aspect of affairs changes. It is a sign of the change that the training-colleges and cookery-schools, besides introducing more Chemistry, Hygiene, and Physiology into their curricula, are definitely asking that the teachers they employ for these subjects, shall be women with science degrees as well as some knowledge of domestic arts. For instance, at the Gloucester School of Cookery at least one former teacher had taken the Natural Science Tripos at Girton as well as Domestic Science Certificates: at Battersea Polytechnic a recent appointment is that of a Domestic Science diplomee, who subsequently took a science degree at Armstrong College, while at the National Training School of Cookery, one member of Staff is at present a science graduate, who subsequently obtained the King's College for Women Diploma in Home Science and Economics.

Again, the new Government report just issued on handwork in secondary schools, while in many ways non-committal, distinctly prefers special training for teachers of Domestic Subjects following on a good general education--_i.e._, a University degree plus technical qualifications, rather than a teaching diploma in Domestic Subjects plus a little science. There is, then, likely to be an increasing number of openings for women who can afford the double training. Schools of housecraft to give all-round training to educated women, are springing up in all parts of the United Kingdom: in those which are attached to Polytechnics and similar inst.i.tutions the fullest advantage is taken of the pure and technical science teaching available in their laboratories.

To those who look for a real advance in household science the weak point of the present situation is the want of proper correlation and standardisation of the work going on. The Board of Education does not examine; it accepts the diploma given by any one of a fairly large number of domestic science schools. In consequence, teachers from different quarters may be using quite different processes and methods in laundry work, cooking, or housekeeping. It is time some fundamental things were agreed upon, and although standardising must not be allowed to become stereotyping, at present constructive generalisation is needed, as well as the upsetting of out-grown traditions. In this context it would be well to discuss a question more properly to be taken at the end of this paper--the connection between the teaching in elementary schools and that in secondary schools. There is no reason to introduce differentiation in the training of the teachers: it is obvious, for instance, that the recent development of including economics in that training, is of extraordinary value to the elementary school teacher. But it is difficult to correlate the instruction given in the management of a middle-cla.s.s household, with from eight to twenty rooms, and from one to a dozen servants, with that given in the management of a workman's cottage or of a flat without a.s.sistance. The connection which does need systematising and establishing is between the management of a middle-cla.s.s house and the training of domestic servants, which ought naturally to form part of the trade or technical after-school work for elementary scholars. Here again, if training is to be followed by certificates, and the domestic servant is to be in the smallest degree an expert, some standardisation of training is necessary. We may, of course, find that domestic service becomes so much a matter of expert work that it is taken up on a large scale by middle-cla.s.s girls, but that can hardly be prophesied yet, although the "lady servant" is an existing phenomenon. It is, of course, also possible that a modern curriculum of "Household and Social Science" may attract a certain number of men of the suitable type of mind. The att.i.tude of the community is changing so rapidly that one may hope those fears to be groundless which speak of "relegating women back to the limited sphere of domesticity," and thereby losing so much that has been gained with regard to their education.

We must now return to give a few particulars which have been pa.s.sed over. Any information on this subject is, however, liable to be very soon out of date. A secondary school that elects to teach cooking and laundry work will want a specially fitted room, which will cost about as much as a simple science laboratory, and will be arranged in as close connection with the science laboratory as is convenient. This means serious expense, and the headmistress is naturally anxious to have considerable use made of the room. Thus she will be led to introduce the subject into a large proportion of the cla.s.ses, instead of limiting it to one or two middle-school forms, or to a selected part of the upper-school. She may, however, try to solve the economic problem by making it a post-school course for which special fees are charged. Certain schools, notably Clapham and Croydon High Schools and Cheltenham Ladies' College are able to make a very important feature of this type of course. To make it a success, the prestige of the school, its influence over girls and their parents, must be great and commanding. Otherwise, unless the girls are aiming definitely at some professional work after the course, there is a tendency to laxness in attendance, or to the relinquishment of the work in the middle, which tendency is engendered by the nature of the subject. The mother's excuse for getting her grown-up girl's company and help will naturally be, "Gladys can boil the potatoes at home instead of at school." A valid answer will be that Gladys is being taught to free her mind from the eternal English boiled potato by learning many other ways of treating it, and at the same time learning its proper place in a diet.

Failing the post-school course, the admittance of domestic subjects to a notable place in the general school curriculum leads to great stress being laid on the teaching of the elements of Physical Science. The eminently "feminine" subject, Botany, gives place to Physics and Chemistry in the middle-school, followed by Physiology and Hygiene in the upper-school. The subjects are to be ill.u.s.trated whenever convenient, by reference to home life. A student choosing her science subjects at College should bear these in mind as likely to be at present of the best market value. Though it is very true that a practical woman who is a good teacher will nowadays connect any science subject with home life, still a parallel course of domestic arts will draw chiefly on the lessons given in these four.

Another fact worthy of notice is that a married woman who is anxious to continue her former profession of science teaching will not as a rule have to suffer the usual unfavourable handicap. That a married woman should teach the domestic subjects is quite a reasonable proposition to many who would exclude her from most professions: if she be also a mother it may even count as an a.s.set instead of a disadvantage.

The Delegacy for Oxford Local Examinations has been the first, as far as we know, to set a paper in domestic science to senior candidates.

There has been a demand for it in the London Matriculation, but objection has been raised on the score of its being a smattering and a soft option. The Oxford Delegacy has introduced two new headings--Domestic Science and Hygiene--and sets two papers under each, without any practical work. The first paper is the same under both headings--Elementary Physics and Chemistry, and the preparation for this is intended to be made at least one school year before the preparation for the second paper. It should be noted that the Hygiene paper is for boys and girls; it includes a little Physiology, Personal Hygiene, and Hygiene of Buildings. The Domestic Science paper is for girls only; it has several details in common with that in Hygiene, but its main features are the simple outlines of the chemistry of foods and of cleansing substances. In a few years the suitability of these subjects for both s.e.xes may have impressed the community.

We may notice, lastly, the arrangements made for instruction in Domestic Subjects in elementary schools.[1] This is given in a specially equipped Centre attached to a public elementary school, the girls from that and other schools attending either for a half or whole day weekly during their last two years at school. In some cases for about fifteen weeks before they leave school, girls give half the week to Domestic Subjects. This experiment has been so successful, that it is likely to be extended in the future. A carefully graded syllabus is followed; due proportion of time is given to theory and demonstration as well as to practical work. Each girl is required to do a certain amount of work by herself, and much thought has been expended in order to make the lessons as useful as possible. The care of infants and young children is receiving increased attention, and it is hoped that much may be done to mitigate evils of wrong feeding and treatment. As far as possible, the teaching in the Centres is correlated with that in the schools. Where there are science laboratories the experiments are made on food-stuffs, changes wrought by application of heat in various ways, the chemistry of common objects, and so on.