A Visit to Some of the San Francisco Schools.

One must spend a month or months in the San Francisco schools to form anything like a correct estimate of the work being done there, and of the men and women who for years have had so much to do with giving mould and direction to the intellectual and moral forces of our great metropolis. We spent five days there-just time enough to insure our going again at the first opportunity.

First, we spent a day in the City Normal School. This is a school for the training of young ladies who wish to teach in the San Francisco schools. Graduates of the San Francisco and other High Schools are admitted to the classes. The course of study is for one year. There are eighty-four students in the present class; and it is safe to say that the great majority will graduate. Of course, some will not. Of those who graduate, the six whose work shows the best result will be placed upon the list of supply teachers in the city. In this manner, behind the corps of city teachers, there is ever a reserve force from among whose numbers a vacancy may be filled at any time and upon the shortest notice. We reached the building during study hour, and were directed by Miss Fowler "down stairs" to the "Cooking Department." (In Missouri we called it the kitchen.) Here we were delighted to find prospective school teachers, in culinary uniform, kneading dough, baking bread, mashing potatoes, dictating and discussing recipes with the same ease, earnestness and integrity which they would be expected to manifest in the study of sense perception or in the demonstration of a theorem. There were twenty-five in the class. On inquiry, we found that prior to their work in this department, six had been accustomed to assist in the kitchen at home, that nearly all were doing so at the time of our visit, and that all enjoyed the work. We asked of the students, "Of what benefit do you think this work is to you?" In answer, we were assured by the young ladies that-

"This is most certainly a step in the right direction." "It gives us higher ideals in general of home duties." "Most of us have had but a crude conception of what cooking meant; now, we find that it is, or should be, applied science." "It is ennobling, not degrading."

Mr. Yoder said: "No young lady can take cooking under Miss Whitaker and leave the school with the same views of its menial po sition as before."

Miss Whitaker said: "I wish to inspire in the mind of every young lady an ambition to so perfect herself in the art and science of cooking as to make her in fact mistress of the kitchen as she should be of the dining room.'

This department of work was organized in the city schools by Miss Whitaker at the call of Mr. Jas. G. Kennedy, about three years. ago. So successful has been the experiment, and such has been the test, that there is now a disposition to increase rather than decrease its

JAMES G. KENNEDY.

facilities. Miss Kate E. Whitaker, the teacher in this work, was educated for this especial line of work in South Kensington. She has good reason to feel proud of what she has done thus far in San Francisco; and we can but believe that future homes will be happier and better for the presence of such a factor in the public schools. On the blackboard we found the following question and answer:

"What does cooking mean?"

"It means the knowledge of Medea, and of Circe, and of Calypso, and of Helen, and of Rebekah, and of the Queen of Sheba. It means the knowledge of all herbs, and fruits, and balms, and spices, and of all that is healing and sweet in fields and groves and savory in meats; it means carefulness, and inventiveness, and watchfulness, and willingness, and readiness of appliance; it means the economy of your grandmothers and the science of modern chemists; it means English thoroughness, and French art, and Arabian hospitality; and it means, in fine, that you are to be perfectly and alway 'ladies' loaf givers;' and as you are to see, inspiratively, that everybody has something pretty to put on, so you are to see yet more imperatively that everybody has something nice to eat."-Ruskin.

But we must turn again from this delightful scene to an
"Old bachelor's hall where Cain,

Chaos and dirty dishes reign."

From the "Cooking Department" we found our way to the Department of Natural Science, in which Mr. D. C. Stone is instructor. He is a special teacher of elementary science in the San Francisco schools; and, for four hours, a week he gives instruction in the same subjects to the Normal class. He has been in the position for three years in the Normal work, during which time he has accumulated quite a cabinet of minerals and other specimens for the use of his classes. We did not get to see any of his class work, but he gave assurance that the students were earnest in the study-looking forward to its value in their own class work as teachers. Having graduated in Ohio, Mr. Stone came to California, where he has been engaged in teaching for forty-five years, with the exception of a three years' experience in farming and mining. For fourteen years he was in Yuba

county as Principal of the Marysville schools and County Superintendent. Has been in the San Francisco schools for twenty-two years.

We next had the pleasure of an interview with Miss Laura T. Fowler, with whom every well-read teacher in California is acquainted, though many have never had the privilege of looking into her kindly face. After graduating from the Packer College, New York, and after having taken special studies in the State Normal of Connecticut, she came to California. For thirty years she has been connected with the various positions of the San Francisco schools, from the primary to the one she now holds, and in all she has proven herself the same earnest, progressive, appreciated teacher. She insists that Normal Schools should, so far as possible, bring prospective teachers face to face with the practical, every-day phases of child-life, child requirements and child possibilities. As Vice-Principal, she is in position to exert an untold influence for good upon the schools of San Francisco. For five years she held the position of Principal, and she filled it well; but now, in her present position, we know that she is relieved of many of the onerous duties of the Principal; yet her influence for good is not one whit less than it was in her former position.

At noon we were invited by one of the young ladies to join Miss Whitaker in her department. There we found a most inviting repast, cooked and spread by the Normal girls. How we enjoyed that lunch! It was more than a sentiment which occupied our mind. 'Twas a forecast of the future when the bread tray and the dish-rag shall become as important factors in the schoolroom as declension and involution. And here we met the Principal, Mr. Albert H. Yoder, who had been absent inspecting the work of the students who were teaching in the city schools.

Mr. Yoder's education was begun in the common schools of South Dakota, from which he passed to the State Normal of South Dakota, graduating in the Latin course. Thence he went to the Indiana University, where he took the course in Pedagogy. He subsequently became "Fellow" in Pedagogy in Clark University. He has filled the various positions of teacher of the common schools, principal of graded schools, superintendent of schools and institute instructor. Was called to his present position one year ago.

Mr. Yoder combines the studies of psychology and child-nature; for he says: "The elements of psychology must become the basis of observation in the study of child nature." Students must be early taught the interdependence of Anthropology, Physiology, Psychology