Through the kindness of friends we have been able to purchase an excellent range and many of the improved cooking utensils now in use. Our girls enjoy working with these modern appliances, and they are taught the necessity of having appropriate places for them in the[pg 127] drawers and cupboards with which the room is supplied. One of the first requirements is--a tidy kitchen.
We have given attention to the preparation of the dishes found on the bill of fare of the average family, and have made much of healthful and proper methods of cooking. We do not propose to make professional cooks, but we hope that our girls will acquire skill sufficient to do all that is necessary in plain and wholesome family living. The class has been stimulated in its endeavor by the fact that the product of their daily work has found its way to the dining-tables of the boarding hall.
The Laundry.
The building in which the laundry work is done was erected by student-labor under the supervision of the Mechanical Superintendent. The washing and ironing are performed in the main by our night-school girls, who are looking forward to attendance upon the day school from current earnings. Here also the day-school occupants of the girls' dormitory do their own laundering, or assist after their daily recitations in the general work of the college.
Nursing.
Miss A.B. Chalfant, Teacher.
The course of instruction is designed to extend through two years, the first being devoted to the sick room--care of the bed; moving and bathing the patient; different kinds of food for the invalid, with its preparation; making and application of poultices; rubbing, and the administration of simple remedies.
In the second year more attention is given to the symptoms and the diagnosis of disease, with something of its treatment; and the proper course in emergencies, as in cases of burns, wounds, loss of blood, sun-strokes, drowning, and poisoning.
The pupils have been chiefly from the Normal grade, though some who are outside of the college family have been glad to avail themselves of the opportunity to enter the class, and they have proved apt and faithful students. Early in the beginning of this school year the instructor offered to organize a class among the young men, and to meet them at an hour not to conflict with other studies. Six persons responded and a high degree of interest has been manifested.
The value of this department is increasingly manifest, not only in the varied service rendered by the nurse teacher, but in the assistance given by pupils of both dormitories at the bedside of the sick, by mothers in the neighborhood who have been in the classes, and by the prophecy of better things for many homes where the influence of this work is felt.