TRAINING IN DOMESTIC WORK.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 August 1921, Page 6

TRAINING IN DOMESTIC WORK.

By means of funds provided by the Government, centres for training women in homecrafts are being opened in various parts of the United Kingdom. It is expected that about 6000 women of ages from IS to 35, will be trained in the elements of domestic work, chiefly in districts where there is a scarcity of factory work, or where unemployment is acute. Describing the work of the first centre established in London, the Times says: ••'Slipshod methods arc the chief fault of the untrained maid, and she rarely knows how to lay a table/ Every day one of the girls is told off to find the necessary knives and forks, and lay a breakfast, luncheon, or dinner table for a different number of persons. It is apparent that many girls would have already taken up domestic work had they not a certain fear of having u do these very things in other peoples houses, and having to give away the fact that they did <>ol know how. They know now how to clean a home from bedroom to kitchen, how to make beds, and also how to look after an invalid, for the nurse who is teaching them infant welfare and first aid has given a daily demonstration in room details. Plain cookin» is taught, and also laundering ordinary things , that are washed at home in small households. Sewing is an important item of the girls’ day s work. That they may tread lightly they are having a certain amount of physical drill, which should be also 'to their physical advantage.”