r new life. The Grange was a
very up-to-date school, and Miss Drummond was an exceedingly
enterprising and go-ahead principal, who kept in touch with all the
latest educational methods, and was ever ready to give some fresh system
a trial. This term she was devoting herself to an experiment which found
great favour among her pupils. It was one of her pet theories that every
woman, whether rich or poor, ought to have a thoroughly practical
acquaintance with all the details of housekeeping, and she was
determined to put this into operation. She had had a small cottage built
in one corner of the grounds, and classes were held there regularly for
cookery and still-room lore. The girls were taught to mix puddings, bake
bread, make light pastry, and concoct many old-world salves and
cordials. Miss Drummond would wax both enthusiastic and didactic when
she aired her views on the subject.

"We can very well emulate our great grandmothers in this respect," she
would say, "and thus make a happy combination of ancient and modern.
Because you are studying French and algebra is no reason at all why you
should not also know how to fry an omelette or boil a potato. A
cultivated brain ought surely to be able to grasp domestic economy
better than an untrained one, and an educated woman who is really
helpful is worth more than an ignorant one. Even if you are never called
upon to do things yourselves at home, you ought at least to know how
they should be done, so that you need not set your maids unreasonable
tasks, and expect impossibilities in the way of service. I think, also,
that a great future for many of our English girls lies in the Colonies,
where domestic help is often at a premium, and the most delicately
nurtured lady must sometimes set to work, and be her own cook and
laundress. If you profit by the classes you attend at the cottage, you
will have an invaluable accomplishment, and one which may in some
emergency prove more useful than anything else you have learnt."

Miss Drummond believed in putting all knowledge to the test of practice,
so she instituted the plan of sending the girls in relays of three to
the cottage every Saturday, and letting them undertake the entire work
of the little establishment. Everything must be done by their own hands:
the stove lighted--after the flues had first been intelligently
cleaned--the rooms swept, dusted, and tidied; the midday dinner
prepared, dished up, and cleared away; the crockery