Soak 1½ ounces of white glue in three ounces of water until it is well softened. Cook in a double boiler until the whole mass is smooth. Remove from the fire and add six ounces of glycerine. Mix well, re-heat, skim, and pour into a shallow pan or on a slate. Prick the bubbles as soon as they show. Allow the mixture to stand for twenty-four hours, and it is then ready for use.
Write the material to be copied, in hectograph ink, on a sheet of the same size as that on which the copy is to be made. Write clearly and space carefully. Wipe the hectograph with a damp cloth. Lay a sheet of unglazed paper on the hectograph, rub it carefully, and take off at once. This removes any drops of water, but leaves the surface moist. Lay the written side of the sheet on the hectograph and rub it carefully over its whole surface with a soft cloth, so that every particle of the writing comes in contact with the surface of the hectograph. Leave it there for four or five minutes. Lift one corner and peel off carefully. Lay a plain sheet on the hectograph and rub as before. Take off as before. If the copy is not clear, leave the next sheet on a little longer. When sufficient copies have been made, wash the hectograph with a wet cloth before putting it away. Keep in a cool, dry place.
The best method of approach to Household Science in the rural school is through the medium of the hot noon-day lunch or the preparation of one or two hot dishes to supplement the lunch brought from home. Owing to the fact that many pupils live far from the school, it is impossible for them to go home for the mid-day meal, and they are thus dependent upon lunches which they bring with them. Very frequently the pupils are allowed to eat their lunches where and how they please, and the method chosen is conducive neither to comfort nor to health. In fine weather they do not wish to lose any time from their games, and so they eat their food while playing, or they bolt it, in order that they may get to their play more quickly. In severe weather they crowd round the steps or the stove and do not hesitate to scatter crumbs and crusts. In one case even a teacher has been seen holding a sandwich in one hand and writing on the black-board with the other.
In many cases the lunch does not attract the pupil. It is often carried, without proper wrapping, in a tin pail, and it then absorbs the taste of the tin; again, it is often wrapped in a newspaper and is flavoured with printer's ink; occasionally, it is wrapped in cloth not too clean. Conditions such as these are not fair to the pupils. They come a long way to school, often over poor roads; and it is necessary, for both their physical and their mental development, that they should receive adequate nourishment served as attractively as possible. Many of the defects found among school children can be traced, to a greater or less extent, to lack of nutrition. The United States military draft shows that the number of those physically defective is from seven to twenty per cent. higher in rural districts than in towns and cities, and this difference is not peculiar to that country. May we not reasonably suppose that many of these defects are caused by mal-nutrition, and that this mal-nutrition is in part due to the poor noon-day lunch? As these defects hinder mental as well as physical development, the question of proper nutrition through the medium of the school lunch becomes an educational one.
THE BOX LUNCH
With proper care in the selection of food, the packing of the lunch box, and rational methods of consumption, there is no reason why the box lunch should not be nourishing, attractive, and possess an educational value.
It may be laid down as an axiom that every school lunch should be supervised by the teacher and hap-hazard methods of eating the lunch should be prohibited. Those schools that are fortunate enough to possess a large table can approximate somewhat to the best home conditions, and have the table set in the proper manner, as shown in Lesson VI, page 18. The pupils should sit round the table, at the head of which is the teacher, and the lunch may be made to partake of the nature of a family party. If rightly managed, the meal, even under the unusual difficulties presented in the rural school, may offer the most favourable opportunities to inculcate habits of cleanliness and neatness and to cultivate good manners. The pupils will learn something about the proper selection of food and the importance of thorough mastication. Clean hands and faces and tidy hair should be insisted upon, and individual drinking cups should be encouraged. As a manual training exercise, each pupil may be taught to make his own drinking cup from heavy waxed paper. Grace may be said by the older pupils in turn.
The table should be made to look as attractive as possible. The pupils, in turn, might undertake to have the table-cloth washed at home or, in place of a linen cloth, a covering of white oil-cloth may be used. In some cases the school garden will be able to supply flowers or a growing plant for a centrepiece. Three or four of the larger pupils, either boys or girls, may set the table in ten minutes, while the others are washing their hands and faces and tidying their hair. Some such plan as this will add palatability and cheer to the monotony of the everyday cold and often unattractive lunch and will create a spirit of true and healthy sociability among the pupils.