should be so helplessly incompetent in the art of cookery, is one of
the great mysteries of nature; but from the varied abominations of
the railway refreshment-rooms to the monotonous dinners of the poor,
English feeding is either wasteful or nasty, or both.

And as to domestic service, the groans of the housewives of England
ascend to heaven! In five cases out of six, the girl who takes a
"place" has to be trained by her mistress in the first rudiments of
decency and order; and it is a mercy if she does not turn up her
nose at anything like the mention of an honest and proper economy.
Thousands of young girls are said to starve, or worse, yearly in
London; and at the same time thousands of mistresses of households
are ready to pay high wages for a decent housemaid, or cook, or a fair
workwoman; and can by no means get what they want.

Surely, if the elementary schools are worth anything, they may put an
end to a state of things which is demoralizing the poor, while it is
wasting the lives of those better off in small worries and annoyances.

3. But the boys and girls for whose education the School Boards have
to provide, have not merely to discharge domestic duties, but each
of them is a member of a social and political organization of
great complexity, and has, in future life, to fit himself into that
organization, or be crushed by it. To this end it is surely needful,
not only that they should be made acquainted with the elementary laws
of conduct, but that their affections should be trained, so as to love
with all their hearts that conduct which tends to the attainment of
the highest good for themselves and their fellow-men, and to hate with
all their hearts that opposite course of action which is fraught with
evil.