Public School Domestic Science

President School of Domestic Science, Hamilton.
This Book may be used as a Text-Book in any High or Public School, if so ordered by a resolution of the Trustees.
TORONTO: THE COPP, CLARK COMPANY, LIMITED, 1898.
Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight, by The Copp, Clark Company, Limited, Toronto, Ontario, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture.
A YOUNG HOUSEKEEPER.

I have come to the conclusion that more than half the disease which embitters the latter half of life is due to avoidable errors in diet, and that more mischief in the form of actual disease, of impaired vigour, and of shortened life, accrues to civilized man in England and throughout Central Europe from erroneous habits of eating than from the habitual use of alcoholic drink, considerable as I know that evil to be. — Sir Henry Thompson.
Knowledge which subserves self-preservation by preventing loss of health is of primary importance. We do not contend that possession of such knowledge would by any means wholly remedy the evil. But we do contend that the right knowledge impressed in the right way would effect much; and we further contend that as the laws of health must be recognized before they can be fully conformed to, the imparting of such knowledge must precede a more rational living. — Herbert Spencer.
Cooking means the knowledge of Medea and Circe, and of Calypso and Helen, and of Rebekah, and of the Queen of Sheba. It means the knowledge of all fruits, and herbs, and balms, and spices, and of all that is healing and sweet in fields and groves, and savory in meats; it means carefulness, and inventiveness, and watchfulness, and willingness, and readiness of appliance; it means much tasting and no wasting; it means English thoroughness, and French art, and Arabian hospitality; it means, in fine, that you are to be perfect and always 'ladies'—'loaf-givers.' — Ruskin.

To obviate this condition, or to at least neutralize its effects somewhat, is one of the principal reasons for introducing Domestic Science into the Public School curriculum; a science which relates so closely to the daily life that it cannot be left to an act of memory; where cause and effect are so palpable that the pupil may readily arrive at an individual conclusion.