A guide to modern cookery / by Mary Harrison ; with a preface by Sir Thomas Dyke Acland.

  • Harrison, Mary.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A guide to modern cookery / by Mary Harrison ; with a preface by Sir Thomas Dyke Acland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/506 (page 8)
    manage any business of the details of which she knows nothing. As a matter of fact she cannot manage it. Certainly she may be at the head, of it, but she cannot manage it in any real sense of the word. To properly manage a house, a mistress should have a thorough know- ledge of (not merely a bowing acquaintance with) all branches of domestic economy, so that she may not only instruct her servants, and see that they perform their duties properly, but in case of illness may, if necessary, perform those duties herself. It is unworthy of a sensible woman that her household should be disorganized, and the comfort of its members disturbed, in consequenco of her ignorance of domestic matters. “ Good household management,” said Mrs. Ellis, writing on the subject of women’s education fifty years ago, “ is indeed a science worthy of attention. It comprises so much as to invest it with an air of difficulty on the first view ; but no woman can reasonably complain of incapa- bility, because Nature has endowed the sex with percep- tions so lively and acute that, where benevolence is the impulse, and principle the foundation on which they act, experience will soon teach them by what means they may best accomplish the end they have in view.” Tho same writer also says: “ There is an appropriate sphere for women to move in from which the middle-class in England seldom deviate very widely. This sphere has duties and occupations of its own from which no woman can shrink without culpability and disgrace; and the question is— are women prepared for thoso duties and occupations by what they learn at school? For my own part 1 know not how education deserves tho name which does not prepare the individual for filling her appointed station in the best possible manner.” But of late years there has been a great tendency to substitute theoretical for practical knowledge of tho different branches of household management. It is to some extent admitted—and this is a hopeful sign—that they claim attention; but with many persons tho study of books on the subject is deemed sufficient, 'lhis is altogether a mistake, particularly with regard to cook- ery. A practical art can only be acquired practically. No theoretical study can take the place of practical