I have already alluded in another place (page 36) to the case of the domestic servant who has been a housemaid or a nursemaid, or waited on ladies, and who perhaps marries and finds herself in a nice little home which it becomes her duty to keep bright and clean. She can do everything except cook, but I venture to say she will find this a great difficulty, and there will be a good deal of unconscious waste and extravagance before even the Rubicon of fried bacon is passed.

It would be a good opportunity for this class of servants to learn cooking at the National School when families go out of town for the autumn, and two or three servants are left in an empty house to while away a couple of months as best they can. I do not want to curtail or interfere with any one's holiday, but it could scarcely be a grievance to a young woman who is perhaps looking forward to a little home of her own some not very distant day, to have the opportunity of taking lessons in the art of cooking her husband's meals. Many of our subscribers may be fortunate enough to possess cooks who are masters or mistresses of their science, and to whom the word instruction dare not be mentioned. What I would venture to suggest to such people is, that although they may not need instruction for their cooks, they might utilize the advantages which their subscriptions will give them, for the benefit of their younger servants or even of their tenants' daughters.

The great point which I have reason to believe the Committee of the National School of Cookery will insist upon is, thoroughness. No one will be allowed to run, or try to run, before she can walk. The elementary knowledge of how to light and manage a kitchen fire, of scrupulous cleanliness in pots and pans, of attention to a thousand small but all-important details, will be taught and insisted upon before the learner is allowed to do anything worthy of the name of cooking. She will then probably be surprised to find how comparatively easy it will be to acquire the art, and she may be very sure she will not be allowed to try a second thing until she can do the first, if it be only boiling a kettle or toasting a piece of bread to perfection.

Such is the plan for complete beginners - who, by the way, generally prove the most successful pupils; - but for servants or artisans' wives who wish to "better' themselves in their kitchens, there will be a different mode of instruction, into which we need not enter here. Ladies will also have an opportunity either of sitting in a chair and listening to a lecture or series of lectures on cooking, began with a mutton-chop and ending with a souffle, or they may turn back their sleeves, take off their rings and bracelets, and try for themselves. It will be hard if any eager inquirer does not find some course or class to meet her needs; and it is to be hoped that whatever excuse may hereafter be urged for our national bad cookery, the reproach of the want of a place and opportunity of instruction will be done away with for ever.

There is but one parting remark I have to make. It is this. The National School of Cookery is not a mercantile undertaking. I have no wish to attempt to throw discredit upon such undertakings, but simply to state the School of Cookery at South Kensington is not one. There will be no question of dividends or bonuses, nor will there be shareholders whose interests and pockets must be considered. The School has every reason to expect that it will be liberally supported by contributions and donations; if it finds itself mistaken in that expectation, it will close its doors, and there will be no harm done to anybody. It is managed by a Committee of gentlemen whose names are a sufficient guarantee for their actions, and no one of them will be individually a penny the richer or the poorer, whether the undertaking succeeds or not. If the School be well and liberally supported, it will be a sign that the need of improvement in cooking is felt by all classes, and for every shilling subscribed it is the intention of the Committee to afford means of instruction. The more money which is forthcoming, the more widely-spread will be the benefit which the promoters of the National School of Cookery hope and believe it is capable of producing.