IT is the accepted educational doctrine that all matters for school instruction should be taught, so far as possible, in the light of first principles. The understanding is to be engaged and thought awakened. A memory laden with rules and precepts is not enough; nor is the faculty of imitation in itself worthy of much care in the direct cultivation of it. The best education embraces more and aims higher.

Therefore, if cooking is to have a place among school exercises, the text-book ought to be, not a cook-book, but a book giving the reasons for its directions, and connecting these reasons with first principles. Such a book this one appears to be. Its claim to the title Boston School Kitchen Text-Book is justified by the fact that the substance of all the lessons has been worked out in the cooking class-rooms or school kitch-ens connected with the Boston public schools. That this working out has been decidedly satisfactory I gladly testify.

Edwin P. Seaver,

Superintendent of the Boston Public Schools.