USA > Ohio > The Western Reserve of Ohio and some of its pioneers, places and women's clubs, Vol. II > Part 35
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The work is optional, but each child registering is pledged to continue the course throughout the year. This has grown to be, however, an almost unnecessary formality, as a pupil who wishes to drop out is almost unheard of, my own experi- ence showing only one in the past two years.
The method used in the demonstration generally consid- ered to be the poorest, and yet having its advantages. By this method we are able to give each pupil thirty-five lessons at a cost of about twenty-five cents yearly for material, where, under the group or individual method as used, the cost would be greatly increased. Then, too, the classes would of necessity be limited and work not be so far-reaching with so few school kitchens. By the demonstration method I do not mean that the teacher does the work, but that the pupils take turns in working three at a lesson, while the others observe. Three pupils do the housework each time. The greatest objection to this plan is that each child does not get a chance to personally try each dish at school. It has never been found hard to keep our pupils' at- tention in class and it is certain that no time is wasted, as it is sometimes under the other methods.
Printed slips are distributed with the day's recipes on them and are pasted into notebooks, on the opposite pages of which the children write whatever notes the teacher may see fit to dictate.
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At the close of the year the child who does not miss a ses- sion will have had thirty-five lessons of from an hour to an hour and a quarter in length, according to the distance she has to come to school. The question is often asked, "Do you turn out competent cooks at the end of that term?" This, it is needless to say, is a man's question. Even the most inexperi- enced of housewives would know that a competent cook is the product of years of infinitely painstaking work and would be far too wise to expect the untrained and immature mind of thirteen years to grasp all the intricacies of the art of cooking. Besides, we are not training girls to work in kitchens other than their own, although that would be far preferable to working in a crowded factory. Some such idea must have been in my small pupil's mind when she said, "She didn't care to learn our way of setting tables if that was the way we taught hired girls."
What, then, are we trying to teach these little maids, who come filled with enthusiasm to play at housekeeping on a lit- tle larger scale than their small sisters, with their tin kitchens and pewter dishes?
To work with hand and brain in unison, to apply knowl- edge gained elsewhere to the trivial round of daily duties, to be accurate, neat and good-tempered, the three fundamental principles of all good housekeeping, not to despise the small things of life, which are after all the great ones, and when it comes to the distinctly practical part of it, to teach them prin- ciples that can be applied to any rule for plain cooking that can be found in any reliable cookbook.
They are taught to judge, for instance, by the proportion of wet and dry material in a recipe something of its consist- ency and not to be surprised when a griddle-cake mixture turns
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out to be a dough instead of a batter. They are not called upon to memorize rules because the knowledge gained of prin- ciples is supposed to enable them to make common things "out of their own heads," as they are fond of saying. If one of them should be given a kind of flour to be made into muffins she should immediately know that she must use one teaspoonful of baking powder to each cup of flour and one-half as much liquid as she has dry material to bring about the required result. As the proportion of the other ingredients is largely a matter of personal taste she has only to have a general idea of it in order to be successful. Right here is where the father is very useful to the cooking-teacher. He will eat anything, no matter how bad, "if my little girl made it all herself," and he has his re- ward in the unexpressed thanks of the teacher and the fact that the most indigestible compound has never been known to disagree with him. But, after all, this same father is less agreeable in other ways, although his intentions are good. He is aften heard to say, "What's the use of going to cooking school? Your mother is a good cook; let her teach you." This is undoubtedly the attitude that a good husband should take, but why should he limit his compliments in this way? Why, since she writes well, can she not teach her child to write or to spell since she is a good speller? And, after all, is it a ques- tion of being a good cook or a good teacher? One whose busi- ness in life it is to teach should be able to do it better than the busy mother, whose time is so divided by her many cares.
It has been in past years supposed that cooking came by instinct and that every girl, when called upon to do so, could take her place at the head of a household and prove herself capable of holding it. This, I think, like the popular notion that cake must not be stirred two ways, is looked upon as an
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exploded idea. I have had some years' experience in teaching and have never found the born cook of whom I have been told. I have found many children careful, neat, accurate and indus- trious, but they had to learn to cook. They, of course, did so more quickly and with fewer failures because of these quali- ties, but they had to learn. Of course, when you consider the pupil who flavored the beef stew instead of the pudding with vanilla because she didn't know them apart, and the one who made salad dressing with machine oil, it looks hopeless, but, then, would such a child learn anything else better? I leave the long-suffering parents and teachers to reply.
The love of construction, so strong even in the youngest child, as all friends of kindergartens can testify, is particu- larly satisfied in the public school kitchen. This is the secret of the interest taken by the pupils in our cooking schools. All the work is done by their own hands and the result is that satisfaction always attends successful endeavor.
Children are scarcely ever allowed to work freely in their own homes. If the child has wealthy parents the mother's social duties do not permit her to give her personal supervision to its efforts and those hired to do the work will not be bothered by it. On the other hand, the hardworking mother of small means has always found it much easier to do the cooking her- self than to find time to show others. She has indeed allowed, perhaps compelled, her child to do the unpleasant parts of housework if there be any such. This is often unavoidable. She simply puts into the hands of the child that part of the work that she knows it can and will do without taking any of her precious moments. But the child scrubs the potatoes and stones the raisins and beats the eggs as part of the drudgery of life and is deprived of its rightful pleasures, that of seeing a completed whole the work of its own hands.
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Incidentally the cooking teacher has a chance to teach many other things. Spelling often seems to be an unheard of and totally superfluous branch of learning and so she must give a spelling lesson now and then.
Cook Book
MRS. ARTHUR HATCH, CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEE.
In presenting the Cook Book of the Cleveland Health Pro- tective Association to the public the committee wish to say that from the first plan of a book composed of a few recipes, to be used for distribution among the less fortunate, has evolved a fine book of 262 pages, a book that will bring distinction and support to any society that fosters it.
We have tried to make the book a perfect thing of its kind, and we feel justified in saying that there are many features about it that are complete and invaluable and cannot all be found in any other one book of its kind.
We give potato cooking in forty ways. We also give you in it nice things for the sick, and simple remedies for disease. Hints on physical culture and things worth knowing. And then there are notes on the value of different foods and the nutri- ment they contain, all taken from the works of scientific men who have made that subject a thorough study and are there- fore undisputed authority on such subjects, which, of course, enhances the value of the book, and, with the beautiful pictures, donated by Mr. E. Shuey, of the National Cash Register Co., of Dayton, Ohio, exhibiting the flowers cultivated by the em- ployes, worth more than the price we ask for it.
All or most of the receipts are accompanied with full di- rections for making them and every receipt has either been sent and recommended by the members or friends of the asso- ciation whose name stands as a voucher for its excellence or
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have been collected from different sources by the chairman and the committee and thoroughly tested before adding them to the list of receipts.
We have studied economy in compiling these receipts, as will be found upon examination, as we give receipts for making good things of simple and inexpensive materials, as well as more extravagant ones. We have the cake, muffins, griddle cakes and puddings without eggs, endeavoring thereby to please all tastes and conditions of our patrons.
The committee beg appreciation as their only thanks in compiling this little book of things material for the Cleveland Health Protective Association and its friends and members.
THE ANNUAL MEETING HELD IN CLEVELAND, OHIO, MAY 8, 10, 11, 1899
The question has been put to me: How much good is your Health Protective Association doing?
I reply : The field is large and we are young yet. We are at least doing something to create public opinion.
There must always be found a need for the work of any organization before that work can become operative.
We know that many laws are never enforced until the public demand them.
The idea for such an organization is already apparent, for we are met on every hand with enthusiastic approval and encouragement.
Why is a Woman's Club necessary when such work comes under the direction of the proper city officials?
All the work of Col. Waring in New York City, which made that city a young Paris, was the inspiration of a Woman's Club, and that club the New York Health Protective Asso- ciation.
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A few of its members having first gained the consent of Col. Waring to serve as leader of their project, they labored long and earnestly with the Mayor of New York to give Col. Waring the position which he afterwards held, until his name became synonymous with purity, order and beauty all over our land and whose beneficent influence seems now our beacon light.
I want to give a few facts regarding the practical work of our Juvenile Department. We have a pledge copied from Col. Waring's juvenile pledge, in which the children promise not to litter the streets by throwing things down and to prevent others from doing so if possible.
In order to reach the greatest number of children we have one of our Juvenile Committee at the public library on Satur- days, where we have obtained over a hundred signers to the pledge, another member of the Committee at the Euclid Ave- nue Baptist Sunday School, where seventy pledges have been signed, and one also at the Plymouth Church Sunday School, where about 60 names have been obtained.
An official blank accompanies each pledge, on which chil- dren report amount of work done.
As yet we have no organized children's leagues, with their little officers, as Col. Waring had. This must be our next move at the beginning of the year's work. Supt. Jones of public schools and Director Sargent of school buildings have signified their interest to co-operate in any way most practicable.
Singularly enough, the work in the schools seems to have taken root and in a school called Waring School on street called Waring street, where the principal assures me that the school yard has never been so clean as since the interest cre- ated there by two leaders of our Juvenile Department.
A story is told there of a boy who had an apple core to throw away, and not wanting to throw it in the street, threw it on the roof of a house.
MRS. W. R. PEARSON CHAIRMAN OF JUNIOR AUXILIARY, H. P. A.
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Right here is a plea for the immediate placing of waste paper boxes at the corner of each block by the City Council.
Upon you, the charter members, rests much responsibility for the future work in your city. We need your help, boys and girls. We cannot do without our little men and little women.
What you put into the first of life you put into the whole of life.
A city free from filth, disease and all unsightly appear- ances will some time be your reward if you work for it and work with your whole heart.
You have it in your power to be very largely what you try to be.
Do you know what makes a nation's strength?
Let me tell you what a great and good man says, and what I want you all to remember:
"Not gold, but only men, can make A people great and strong-
Men who for Truth and Honor's sake Stand fast and suffer long."
MRS. GRACE D. S. PEARSON.
International Superintendent Junior Auxiliary, H. P. A.
FLOWER CULTURE
MRS. ELLA GRANT WILSON, Florist, Cleveland, O.
When I was a little girl 10 or 12 years old, I was as fond of flowers as I am now,-I wanted a flower garden,-and how do you suppose I got it. I got my younger brother to help me to dig and spade a strip three feet wide the length of a stone walk, then I went to different friends of my parents and asked them if they kindly would give me such slips of garden roses,
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and anything of a hardy character that they had. And then I wanted seeds and I did not know how to get them; at last, one of my mother's friends gave me one of James Vick's cat- alogues and the problem was solved. I went among the neigh- bors and got up a club,-got them to give me their orders for seeds, and then I got some extras as premiums, or in other words, pay for my work in seeds.
You see, that is the way I managed to earn them, even if I was a little girl, and I can assure you those seeds were very carefully attended to, no weeds allowed to grow and choke them, and I learned much by my successes and my failures that year. I believe any seedman in this city would be glad to help any ambitious boy or girl, if they would get orders and take the cash with the order to him, they would be glad to give them extras, and then you could get your start.
One thing I then learned was, you could not plant seeds on hard, dry ground, they want soft, fine soil, a little moist, and they want to be kept a little moist and shaded until they come up, or as we call it, germinate. Do you know what moist means? It don't mean mud, and don't mean wet.
And when it is cool or cold days, you don't want them as moist as on warm, hot days like we had a week ago. Now we will suppose that you have your garden all prepared, that it is in a place where the trees nor any buildings shade it, that it has been well spaded and pulverized at least eight inches deep, that you have made it good and rich with manure-and right here is a stumbling block to the beginner,-yes, and to the end of life, I might say, for the elements of plant life and the compositions of soil is the subject of a life-time of study,- to get the best results you must get the best food. You can't grow a boy on fruit cake, neither can you develop him on crusts
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of bread. He must have the proper food or nourishment, and so it is with plant food. It must be the proper kind.
However, I can give you a few plain rules for sowing seeds: Sweet peas, candy-tuft, larkspur, poppies, mignonette and nasturtiums may be planted where you want them to grow, but for other sorts it would be better to prepare a seed box, or seed bed, for most of the other seeds, as they are small, such tiny seeds they get lost among so many strong growing weeds. You know a weed is a plant out of place, and you can also shade and water them better when in a seed bed where the wind will not dry it up. Make your soil by getting good rich earth and making it very fine either by the hands or putting it through a sieve, now level it off smooth and have a board the size of a brick to pat it down with, plant your larger seeds in rows. The rule for planting seeds is plant twice their diameter.
Children, do you know what diameter means? What is it? Will some one tell me? Yes, it means the thickness through; then cover lightly with good earth,-now a very important mat- ter comes in. Take your board and press down firmly the earth containing the seeds,-this is very important and more failures are due to the lack of this firm planting than to any other cause, then sprinkle thoroughly but lightly with water and cover with a thin cloth, or a paper will answer. As soon as they have come up lift the paner so they can have room to grow and in a day or two remove it entirely. Be sure at this time when they are such weak little baby plants, that they do not get dry, after they are a week or two old. After you have had a nice rain like we had last night, you want to move your seedlings by carefully put- ting a small spade or trowel under them, and set them out in the place you want them to grow and flower in. If you set them
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out in the hot sun it will very likely dry them out, as they can- not in their weak condition draw moisture from the earth, and that must be supplied until they are able to reach down with their roots and supply themselves. Now I think we have got pretty well started, and if you pull up all the little plants out of place-the weeds-and don't feed them too much cake, nor give them all crusts, and don't let them stand with their feet in water, nor let them get too thirsty, and be sure and tie stakes to those too weak to stand alone and make something for your sweet peas to climb on and keep all the dead leaves and flow- ers off, and keep the soil stirred so it will not get hard and bake, you are going to have a famous little garden, which many of your friends will envy you the possession of. Now in regard to the Geranium competition, you must register your name for it now. You will find your plants in four-inch pots, they are all right for the present. When they fill the pots with roots, which will be in about four weeks, they will need to be shifted or repoted in a six-inch pot; when a branch gets to be about four inches long the center wants to be pinched out, and that will
make it branch out and be bushy. Next fall we want you all to bring them all back, and for every one of you who have taken care of and kept your geranium in health a prize will be given. Do not plant your geraniums out of the pot-if you expect to get a prize plunge, that is, sink the pot and plant in the earth and water it every day a little regularly-remember what I have said about standing with their feet in water. That means that the water should run out of the pot, not stand in it. I am very sorry I cannot be with you today, as I intended to show you how to plant seeds instead of merely telling you.
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Vivisection
MISS STELLA HATCH, Cleveland, O., Chairman of Department of Vivisection.
Several months ago, at a meeting of "The Women's Health Protective Association," and following the reading of a paper on "The Keeping of Dogs in a City," I was requested to write a paper for the ensuing year on "Vivisection," and also to con- sider the organization of a branch of this Society for the pur- pose of studying "Vivisection and matters relating to kindness to animals." I consented to attempt the writing of the paper, but the organization of such a branch seemed a more difficult problem, however, after a long period of serious thought, con- siderable reading, and the study necessary to the writing of such a paper, the problem assumed different proportions, which perhaps we, as intelligent beings, would not do well to ignore.
The question of the right or wrong of vivisection is by no means a new one; its agitation has gone on with more or less vigor for many years. Vast quantities of literature embracing scientific journals, monthly magazines, leaflets and tracts have been written and scientists and others have cunningly argued on both sides.
The short space of time allotted to this paper will not afford even a fairly written discussion of the merits or de- merits of vivisection. Very little, very unsatisfactory sketches on both sides of the question are all that you will have time to listen to, and yet to the writer and personally to some listener the question is momentous in its importance and presents the following proposition: either the practice of vivisection is right -or it is wrong; if it is right and a positive benefit to man- kind, why then may we refrain from troubling and let the good
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work go on, it needs not even the whisper of a conscience in its defense, for according to all accounts it is going on in this country to an unlimited extent. If it is wrong, then it is de- plorably wrong, and needs the awakening of every conscience, the arousing of every effort in one long, loud clarion cry of protest.
There is but one way of arriving at a satisfactory conclu- sion of this matter, and this is by a careful, conscientious, un- prejudiced study, and for the pursuance of that study, there is no more advantageous method than that proposed-the or- ganization of a chapter or branch for that purpose.
What is vivisection ?
According to the Century Dictionary, under the head of No. 1, vivisection is the dissection of a living body, the prac- tice of anatomizing alive, or of experimenting upon living ani- mals for the purpose of investigating some physiological func- tion or pathological process which cannot well be otherwise de- termined. Vivisection strictly includes only cutting operations, but the term is extended to any physiological experimentation upon living animals, as compression of parts by ligature.
Under the head of No. 2, vivisection is the subjection of the creature to special conditions of atmospheric pressure, tem- perature and food, exhibitions of poisons or other drugs; in- oculation of disease, etc.
In a tract written by the President of the "New England Anti-Vivisection Society," Dr. Philip G. Peabody, of Boston, the following explanation is given :
"Vivisection is the mutilating, cutting and burning of liv- ing animals; they are dissected, roasted, boiled and skinned when alive and in full possession of all their faculties, nerves are dissected out, laid bare and connected with the poles of an
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electric battery from which currents of electricity are passed over the nerves; this probably causes the greatest agony of which sentient beings are capable."
I will give you one side of the question.
For about thirty years, says C. F. Hodge (assistant pro- fessor of physiology in Clark University,, the vivisection ques- tion has been before the public in this country. He says man finds himself in company upon the earth with an infinite num- ber of living things and he has found it of inestimable value to learn something about this maze of life. The science which has come to embody this knowledge is now known as biology; it falls naturally into two divisions, the study of the form and structure of organs and organisms-anatomy or morphology -and the study of the functions of the actions which the organs perform. This is physiology, dividing further, physiology falls into the science of healthy action, physiology proper, and dis- eased action, pathology from a Greek word which means suf- fering.
It is evident that for the study of form alone, the dead body is, in general, sufficient, but not for the investigation of the activities of health and disease.
It is evident that the physiologists and pathologists require vital action as the physicist requires motion; it is continually being urged, that the dead body is sufficient for every scientific purpose. As well say the dead body is as good as a live man. It would be precisely as reasonable to agitate against driving live horses, contending that dead ones will go just as fast, as to oppose the use of live animals for physiological or patho- logical research.
Of all physical nature nothing is of greater importance or touches man more closely than just this thing-life.
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The study of form, anatomy, is little more than a dead stepping stone to this science of the process of life-physiology.
In a word, the faith, hope and charity which inspire this science, are to learn enough about the laws and possibilities of living nature, to do away with all disease and premature death, and to make all life as full and perfect as the laws will permit.
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