Now let us sum up what we have been trying to teach and to learn in this little book. To begin with, we will run through the first part, which is perhaps rather alarming on account of its hard words, and see what has been said.

No one will deny the importance of urging rich and poor alike, in the present state of things, to try and economize the fuel and food which they may have at their disposal. When I use the word economize, and apply it to rich people, I mean it to bear a wider significance than when I speak of the very poor, with whom it is an absolute necessity. It is just because there is not this absolute necessity on the score of expenditure, that a due attention to the principles of economy in food and fuel sits so gracefully on a rich person. I do not mean that only two fires should be lighted in a splendid mansion, or that its inmates should gather every day around a dinner of bone-soup or a lunch of bread and cheese. That would of course be absurd nonsense, and no one is so short-sighted as not to perceive that such economy would starve a good many thousand people in other grades of life. What I mean is, that in all households, beginning with those costly establishments where the duty devolves on a. steward or housekeeper, there should be such arrangements, such training, such recognized principles, that the possibility of waste should be reduced to the lowest point. Everyone will acknowledge that in what are called "great kitchens," the "waste," - the broken victuals, scraps, crusts, bones, and so forth - would feed many a poor and hungry family. All I say, then, is : "Let it feed such families : don't let it be thrown away, or sold as refuse." When we have made the most of everything, there will still be quite enough refuse in the world, without adding to it portions of food which would be a boon and a blessing to a starving child. The same with fuel Let people who can afford to pay for coals have as many fires as they choose, but let them take care that the coals are fairly used and made the most of, cinders and all, so will there be more left in the market for those to whom a hundredweight of coal is of more importance than is a ton to a rich man. Let such people have grates and stoves, and all the new inventions for the economy of fuel, and then, if everybody makes a conscience of being careful with their coals - economical without being stingy, but insisting on every cinder being duly used, or even given away, instead of finding its way into the dust-hole - we shall not perhaps have constant alarms of scarcity and famine prices.

So much can rich people do to help; but those in the lower grades of society can do a great deal more ; and I am persuaded that the chief reason a great deal more is not done is because people don't know how to do it. The mistress of a middle-class household considers that she fulfils the whole duties of her position by giving a few languid orders to her servants, which they obey or not, according to their several dispositions. By all means let her confine herself to this feeble style of housekeeping until she knows how the things should be done, for until then it is better she should not interfere. If everything was exactly as it should be, if cooks knew not only how to lay and light fires, but to cook exquisitely, it would be very delightful, and we might all live happy ever after. But, unfortunately, we seem to be a long way from such a desirable state of things ; and complaints of the bad, and an outcry for good, servants grow louder every year. Now, it appears to me that good mistresses are just as much needed as good servants, mistresses who are capable of explaining kindly and clearly to a servant how and why their duties - or such portion of their duties as they are ignorant of - should be performed. Explanation is a good deal better than scolding, and the practical knowledge from which such explanations should spring is quite compatible with the utmost refinement and cultivation of the mind. I don't want ladies to do the servants' work; I only want them to have the opportunity of learning to explain how such work should be performed, and to understand, even in theory, why and wherefore certain causes bring about certain results in domestic economy.

Let us take the mistress of an ordinary middle-class household, a household where the husband works hard to make an income of from 500 l. to 1,000 l. a year, on which four or five children have to be educated and set forth in the world, and perhaps relations to be helped besides (for poor people generally have to help their relations). Ten years ago it would have been, for that rank of life, almost a large income. Nowadays it is a very small one, and it has therefore become more than ever of grave importance that the person on whom its management chiefly depends should know something besides music and drawing. Well, then, this typical lady shall be amiable, intelligent anxious to do her best for her family and household, and yet what state of things shall we be tolerably sure to find in such a house ? In the nursery, "Missis" is all that is capable and useful. She thoroughly understands how to provide for the health and pretty toilettes of her nice little children. She and Nurse get on very well; they have a mutual respect and confidence in each other's "knowledgeableness," and a thorough belief in each other's capacity. All is right at the top of the house. On the next story the lady is not quite so certain of her ground. She has indeed slender theories on the subject of dust, and, we will hope, a wholesome love of fresh air, but a new housemaid will probably find that she can do pretty much as she likes in her own department.

But it is not till we come down to the kitchen that we begin to suspect there is a screw loose somewhere. If our lady has been fortunate enough to stumble upon a cook who for 14 l. or 16 l. a year will cook savoury meals for her every day of her life; a cook who is as clean as she is clever, and as honest as she is sober, then indeed there will be peace and harmony in that establishment, unless the cook should happen to have a bad temper. But how is it if the cook be merely an ignorant, honest, "willing" young woman ? Who is to teach her ? How and where is she to be trained ? That has hitherto been the great difficulty of English middle-class life, and it is to remove, or at all events to give those who wish it an opportunity of removing it, that the National School of Cookery is to be established at South Kensington. Everything cannot be done in a moment; unsuspected needs will crop up, an extended sphere will necessitate wider arrangements ; but I can safely affirm that the point which will be steadily kept in view by the Committee is this great need of the English people - the want of some place where a girl or woman can be taught how to cook. It is not necessary for ladies to bend over the fire and harden their palms with saucepan handles, for it is easier to teach an educated person by theory than an uneducated one; and a lady will carry away a great deal of useful knowledge from a lecture where a cook-maid would have been swamped by words and phrases above her capacity. There will therefore be both forms of education; but, so far as my own experience goes, and speaking confidentially, I should have been very thankful for both opportunities of practical instruction before I went to New Zealand. I might then perhaps have been saved many an anxious moment, to say nothing of constant culinary discomfiture. I did go down to a friend's kitchen more than once, and try what knowledge I could pick up, but I was so bewildered by the size and splendour of the batterie-de-cuisine, and the cook would persist in regarding my desire for information as either a whim or a joke on my part, so that it ended by my learning nothing whatever which proved of any practical use to me. To begin with, I could not explain to the cook what I wanted to know; I could not even say where my ignorance began or where it ended, though indeed I found out afterwards that it would have been well to have established some infallible test for ascertaining when the kettle boiled. What experiments even in this line were necessary when I set up for myself ! including one recipe of turning the kitchen poker into a sort of tuning-fork, and holding the handle to my ear, whilst the poker-point rested on the lid of the kettle. That method soon fell into disfavour, for it used generally to result in upsetting the whole affair and extinguishing the kitchen fire.