But I cannot conclude this portion without a special reference to some remarks by Madame Emilie Lebour-Fawssett.  They occur in her most admirable book French cookery for ladies, and are so sensible that they should never be forgotten.  “I like,” says Madame, “to place before my husband, who has been hard at work all day long, a nice tempting dinner, very much varied and well cooked; and I cannot, repeat it too often, it is one of the strongest ties of home life, and I am sure many a man in the day, when he is most busy, unconsciously smiles inwardly at the prospect of the nice little dinner awaiting him at home, when his hard day’s work is over.  Small, dainty, well-made dishes gratify your husband’s appetite, help to keep him healthy, prepare him a good digestion for his old age, and save your purse.”

In another part of the book, a little farther on, she remarks:—–­“One of my chief objects also is to teach the great mass of people to make better use of the numberless good things there are to be obtained, and thereby keep their husbands away from the public-house.  It stands to reason that if a man who has worked all day comes home and finds nothing warm and appetising prepared for him, he will go away quicker than he came, and spend at the first hotel the money he would otherwise have gladly spent on his family if his wife had tried and knew how to make him comfortable; and, there is no denying it, the greatest comforts a man can have after a day’s work, be it manual labour or brain work, are a good meal and a quiet corner in which to smoke his pipe or cigar.”

COOKERY IN THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER.

Yet, valuable as it may be in all these foregoing respects, Cookery has something more to recommend it, which gives it precedence before everything else in education; and though this is saying a great deal, I shall endeavour to demonstrate that it is perfectly true.  I have already shown that Cookery is of superlative benefit, both in ensuring health and in acting as a preventive against habits of intemperance.  But it is as a medium for training that Cookery is at its very best; for it is in reality an art; indeed, it is a master art.  At the same time, also, it is a science—­the science of applied chemistry.  There are no other elements of education which thus blend within themselves these two factors—­the practical and the scientific.

To commence with, Cookery requires accuracy.  The instructions given with any recipe are sufficient to show this.  They tell you to take so much of each thing, to proceed in a certain way, and even what time to take in the cooking.  It also calls for attention to detail.  Carelessness in Cookery is just one of the rocks on which disaster occurs.  An English duke, an ambassador at Paris, was desirous of giving the corps DIPLOMATIQUE the treat of a real English plum pudding.  The fullest directions