induce a kind of morbid intellectual
acuteness, or nervousness. If the inner thought is entirely serene and
happy, this may do no harm; but if it is not, if there is any internal
annoyance or grief, the mind turns it over and over, till, like a
snow-ball, it grows to a mountainous mass, and too heavy to be borne
with patience. I think many women will testify, from a woman's
experience, that there are times when an afternoon spent in sewing gives
some idea of incipient insanity. This lengthy discussion of the woman's
art of sewing can only be excused on the ground that it touches the
question of physical and mental health. As a means of support, the
needle can hardly be spoken of now.

As to Cooking, the same in substance might be said. It is perhaps a
little more mechanical in its nature, though of that I am not positive;
but if a girl is educated into a full development of what is known as
common sense, she can turn that common sense in this direction as well
as in any other, if the necessity arises. The parts of cooking which
call for judgment--such, for instance, as whether cake is stiff enough
or not, whether the oven is hot enough, safely to intrust the mixture to
its care, whether the bread is sufficiently risen--require the same kind
of trained senses as that by which the workman in the manufacture of
steel decides as to the precise color and shade at which he must
withdraw it for use. To quote from an English woman:[1] "Cookery is not
a branch of general education for women or for men, but for technical
instruction for those who are to follow the profession of cookery; and
those who attempt to make it a branch of study for women generally, will
be but helping to waste time and money, and adding to that sort of
amateur tinkering in domestic work which is one of the principal causes
of the inefficiency of our domestic servants * * * The intellectual and
moral habits necessary to form a good cook and housekeeper are
thoughtfulness, method, delicacy and accuracy of perception, good
judgment, and the power of readily adapting means to ends, which, with
Americans, is termed 'faculty,' and with Englishmen bears the homelier
name of 'handiness.' Morally, they are conscientiousness, command of
temper, industry and perseverance; and these are the very qualities a
good school education must develop and cultivate. The object of such an
education is not to put into the pupils so much History, Geography,
French or Science, bu