WOMAN'S WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 96, 13 October 1911, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD.

(Conducted by "Eileen"). j TRAINING FOR MOTHERHOOD. ] STOMAL COI'KSKS IX LONDON SCHOOLS. At the new central school in North London, where picked girls from neighboring elementary schools are sent for a special four years' course, an elTort is being made to bring science into close touch with domestic subjects, training every faculty for its employment in woman's most important task. The education provided in the "housecrafts" course is excellently adapted to lit girls for domestic service, and enable them to obtain good .situations on leaving school without preliminary experience as kitchen maid or ''tweeny." It is divided under two headings, experimental and practical. Tn the first year the, children take housework. They study, among other things, the means by which dust, bacteria ami parasites are conveyed from place to place; the composition of various substances used in cleaning, and the method of their application, and the properties of the different materials, such as wood, marble and silver, needing to be cleaned in the ordinary house. In the way of practical work they scrub and sweep and polish, make bed.--, lay tables and perform other tasks generally falling to the housemaid's share, the work being carried on in a little model house which forms part of the school building. The needlework classes include instruction in the cost of materials and their utility both from the point of view of wearing capacity and hygiene. The mending and renovating of household linen is also taught. Laundry work, which is taken in the second year, consists on its experimental side in an examination of common substances, such as water, soap and starcli. used in washing and "getting up" clothes, and in the study of the cost and care of materials and appliances used in laundry work. On its practical side, it includes not only performing every process with up-to-date appliances such as would be used in a good private house, but also going through an ordinary family washing-day with the simple utensils employed in most working-class homes. An important branch of the teaching is the treatment of the clothing of persons suffering 1 from non-notifiable diseases. Cookery in- | eludes, on the experimental side, a careI ful study of different foodstuffs, with a I view to comparing their nutritive value 'and suitability for persons of ddil'erent •ages and in different states of health. The practical sides takes in the choice and cost of foods and both general and invalid cookery.

An attractive feature, of the school is the physical and chemical science course, with its simple application to the water supply, heating, sanitary arrangements and ventilation of the home. Naturestudy is also taken in the first two years, botany in the third, and physiology and hygiene in the fourth year. This includes the care of the body, first treatment of cuts and slight ailments, protection against common and contagious diseases, and so on. Besides the work actually bearing on or leading up to the practice of house-craft, instruction is given in drawing, sinking, clav modelling and physical exercises, with a view to cultivating the taste, imagination and manual dexterity of the children. The singing, in addition to strengthening the lungs and throat, has a marked effect in improving the pronunciation of tho girls, an improvement badly needed in the case of little Londoners. The art and needlework classes have a good influence on the girls' tastes in dress, many of them wearing simple frocks trimmed with really good embroidery worked by their own hands, and also embroidering garments for their younger I brothers and sisters. In the fourth year, every faculty hav- [ ing been developed, the girl will come 'to the study of the baby. It is intended to give practical training in childtraining in a creche connected with the school, but this has not yet been actually ' started, ns the school has only been ' opened a few months. The plan of taking girls in turn to a neighboring creche for the completion of their course in child lending has been tried already in one of the central schools in the East End with great success; but there are. not at this school the facilities for training in house-craft which are provided in the newer building. Here, in the little model house will be held classes in "home-organisation." as well as in "house-craft."' including the choice of the different requirements of a house, catering, thrift, and the keeping of accounts.

A second enterprise is being started by the Women's Industrial Council, who have for some time been pleading in vain with the educational authorities to provide training in the care of young children as part of their scheme of technical instruction. They are now opening a small training school themselves in a part of Hackney, where a great many women are obliged to go out to earn their living, so that there will be a plentiful supply of babies whose mothers will be glad to leave them daily at the school. The girls will therefore have actual practice each day in the bathing, dressing and feeding of young children; and as the matron is a trained nurse, who is assisted by a certificated domestic economy teacher, they will lea.ru the very best methods, and should be able to obtain places as children's nurses, on leaving, at good wages). While providing a creche for the neighborhood, the Industrial Council has no intention of encouraging maternal neglect, but will only accept babies whose mothers are re.tlly obliged to leave them.

In addition to child-fending, pupils of the Hackney Training School will bu titight to wash, scrub and cook—in short, all that belongs to the work of an ordinary house. They will aNo lean elementary physiology ami hygiene. Then- an- already a few establishments in London, as elsewhere, fur training as children's nurses, and sometimes engaged girls go to these to prepare for their future duties: but training for motherhood should be within reach of all. so that it v lie taken as a matter of course bv girls about to be married.

CREDULITY OF WOMEN. I \l IN )>('!'i: Til \VW.\) BY A DETECTIVE CLIENT. New York. August '22. Mine. Adch- Riqgc. High Priestess of the organisation known .-is tlie "Circle of universal soul freedom.'' whose lectures on advanced new though! at Carnegie Hall and el-culicre attract large and fashionable audiences of American women, was arrc-ted yesterday and ludd for trial. She is charged by the New York Coiiiity Medical Association with practising medicine without a license, 'Mine, lliqiie was visited j,y a. woman detective, who was seeking a cure for headache and instruction in soul freedom. According to the detective's testimony. Madame received her in a beautifully furnished apartment, with incense burning, and offered to treat her for a month' at. a bargain price of r\ The regular charge was £l2. "Every riorniiig.'' said Madame, "f want yon to say, 'flood morning, my soul,' clasp you a rims tinder your neck,

and stretch yourself out to your toes-. If you rise without' saying 'Good morning, my soul,' go back to bed and say it.

"Then rise and form a circle by extending your arms and describing a circle with them. Then say, 'All this belongs to me.' This, my dear lady, give yoii power. Do you know where your soul hit"

The detective confessed her ignor ance.

"It is in your left lung," the High Priestess declared. She told the detective that she should breathe through her mouth. '"You let your dead self pass out when you do Mint," she said.

Madame further told her patient what kind of colored dresses to wear for soul cuttwre.

"Red is particularly good for your physical force, I want you this winter to get a brown costume trimmed with scarlet, and a little brown toque trimmed with scarlet berries.

Pcrfimres, advised Madame, should be used for their attractive force. "What you need is a strong Oriental perfume like azure or incarnata. Anyone who does not like your perfume does not like you. Put some on your bodice and handkerchief; it will strengthen you, and attract people to you. Take out your handkerchief at the butcher's or the baker's, and the clerks will immediately leave all others to attend to you." After this 'Madame massaged the detective's neck and spine, and rubbed alcohol on her face. Sim departed with Madame's assurance that already she looked three years younger. The detective called again, this time complaining of the stomach-ache. "Let us go into a silence," said Madame. They held hands, and the detective was instructed to relax herself, dose her eyes, and think of her left lung, where her soul was. Then Mndiamc told her to go home and take calomel tea. Her parting injunction was, "Do not forget to say good morning to your soul."

NOVEL TEST OF LOVE. ENGAGEMENT BROKEN OFF IN CONSEQUENCE. lAlphonse Marron, a young man of independent means, has found a novel , means of testing his fiancee's affection, with the result that the engagement is J now broken oIT. ! Yesterday he called on the girl, Mdlle. ) Suzanne Roix, and after a few minutes' : conversation, during which he affected great mental depression, he asked her for a drink of water. As lie took the glass, from her and he produced a tiny phial' from iiis pocket, and, emptying the contents into the water, drank it oil' before she could hinder him. His face then contracted, and he sank a helpless mass on the floor. Ifo had only time to beg his sweetheart's forgiveness before he expi reu. as she thought. r-iforlunately for Suzanne. Alphonse was not even unconscious, and he was able to watch the effect on her of his own death. Without the slightest show of sorrow she hastened to the telephone and rang up the police station to say Uiat a suicide liad been committed in her apartments, and. begging that the body might be removed as soon as possible. . This was too much for Alphonse. who pion.ptly resurrected himself and left the liouse, after telling Oils sweetheart , wha; he thought of her.

ENGLISH DOMESTIC SERVICE. Go-mpetition and legislation in England are threatening to raise the conditions of EnglisJi domestic service to the Australian level (writes the Australasian). Accident insurance, sickness benefits and old-age pensions are, ov shortly will be, granted to English domestic servants by law. Even the municipal authorities are interfering in the interests of the housemaid, the cook, the footman, and the butler. Tn 'Marylebone the Borough Council has ordained that no basement shall be used as a sleeping room, however healthy, airy and well drained thai basement may be. Marylebone includes such a street as Portland Place, and the doctors' quarter, Tlarley street, Wimpolo street and Queen Anne street. The district, therefore, contains hundreds of large establishments where men servants are employed. The English custom is for footmen and butlers' to >leep downstairs, near the silver cabinet, while the five or six women servants sleep upstairs. The result of the by-law will probably be to throw hundreds of men servants out of employment. Manifestly the great bouses in Portland Place and liarley street cannot be rebuilt. It is not likely that the master or the mastress will vacate their own bedrooms for the sake of .Tames, even if the Borough Council of Maryleborough permitted them to sleep in a basement 3ft below the -mail level. As at present drafted, the by-law forbids anybody to sleep in a basement. There are, by the way, scores of new and expensive Hats, with basement flats, which 'have been let at high rentals-. If, other borough councils follow the example of Maryleborough these will be 'Useless. The old boast that "an Englishman's homo is his castle" is out of date. He and his wife may not even sleep in one portion of I heir own premises.