into stove polish or into the fillings of lead-pencils. The same principle is followed in the study of birds, fish, cows, horses, and other animals. How stimulating this method is, may be seen from the fact that the boys who frequent the museum are not satisfied with a bookknowledge of electricity, but have rigged up their own wireless apparatus, with which they have been able to communiIcate with ships on Long Island Sound.

At the beginning of this article, were mentioned a woman diver and a woman lighthouse keeper. There is a third woman who, in a way, combines the duties of the other two. This woman is Ida Lewis Wilson, more familiar on the lips and in the hearts of the American people as simply "Ida Lewis." Ida Lewis, no longer in the prime of her strength, can still be found at the Lime Rock lighthouse at Newport, in Rhode Island. Her father was the keeper of that lighthouse, and Ida Lewis learned at an early age how to row, how to swim, and how to dive. More than twenty persons

has she saved from death by drowning in the waters off the Rhode Island coast. Her boat, the Rescue, was exhibited at the World's Fair in Chicago. Medals have been granted her by the Humane Society of Massachusetts and by the Life-Saving Benevolent Society of New York. Her career is one in which physical courage and moral self-sacrifice have united to set a standard approachable by few in either sex.

What shall be said to these illustrations of feminine courage, of feminine adroitness, of feminine power of innovation? It makes no difference what is said. If women had waited for encouragement from the world, they would still all of them be sitting by the fireside spinning. If advice were capable of having any effect on them, they would never have gone beyond their front doors. So all that can be done is simply and humbly to record the acts which, without encouragement and against advice, they have so far performed, and which in the future they give great promise of bettering,

ARD on the fate of the family soapmaking, the household spinning, and other domestic arts of a few years ago, which no longer occupy an important place in the curriculum of home education, the making of home-made bread is now threatened with at least partial extinction.

As machinery encroaches more and more upon hand processes, articles of common consumption that once were fabricated in the home are bought ready-made of the dealer. And the ready-made product generally is cheaper, and, if honestly made, better than would be produced in smaller quantities and by less scientific methods.

Not only has machine-made bread supplanted the article made by hand, in the large cities, but it is now rapidly invading the country as well. More than four million pounds of bread are produced in the city of New York every day, and of this quantity many thousand pounds are consumed in farm houses on Long Island, up the Hudson, and in New Jersey. This bread is generally better and can be sold more cheaply than that mixed and moulded by hand and baked in the oldfashioned ovens.

Making bread for four millions of persons-as New York does is an industry of considerable magnitude. Until very recently it was an industry which was carried on by practically the same methods as had obtained since bread was first made. The preparation of no other manufactured food had undergone so little change. Even now in the so-called foreign quarters of New York, Chicago, and other large cities, but little difference is noted in the bread-making habits of the present from those of the venerable past.

An estimate by a man at the head of

one of the largest bakeries in New York places the number of loaves of bread baked daily in that city at a million and a-half. This does not include the rolls, buns, and biscuits also baked. The number of bakeries is given as 2,500, and in this are not included many of the small East-Side concerns. The consumption of flour is about 10,000 sacks daily; and 10,000 men-who include bakers, assistants, drivers, etc.-are engaged in the occupation of making and selling the product. In one of the large bread factories, 225 men are employed daily. Of this number, 88 are bakers. These work in two shifts, of nine hours each. The delivery wagons begin to leave the bakery with their loads at midnight, and by 5 A. M. the last is sent away.

is no longer necessary to devote hours to kneading the dough and shaping it into loaves. The flourmixer, the kneading machine, and the doughdivider will do in a quarter of the time the work for which formerly many men were needed.

The varieties of bread which may be made by the same machinery, and the shapes of the loaves, are limited only by the wish of the baker. In the large factories, three distinct kinds are made -rye, "home-made," and Vienna-but these are in many different styles. No small portion of the baker's time is devoted to the making of rolls, of which, also, there are many styles.

In New York especially have great advances taken place in the art of breadmaking. The bread of Paris has been noted for centuries for its excellence, but "French bread" is now made in New York which can compare favorably with any production of the French capital, and it is only one of more than a score of varieties of bread which New York produces equally well.

In the sanitary conditions surrounding bread-making, New York also has made an advance. The baker no longer works in a dark, poorly ventilated cellar, but in large, airy buildings constructed specially for the purpose. He is obliged to take a daily bath in bathrooms provided in the building, and to make an entire change of clothing before he begins his work. White jackets and trousers and fresh underclothing are provided by the firm.

The old-fashioned baker would find himself completely lost in one of the great modern factories of New York. with its machinery and labor-saving devices, the use of which would be entirely novel to him. It

Americans of English or Irish descent are partial to wheat bread and use but little rye, while the German and Dutch Americans eat rye almost exclusively.

When the "machine" baker has completed his toilet and entered the workroom, his first task is the blending of the flour, the object being to combine the requisite proportions of proteids, fats, and carbohydrates. The flour is then

ing made, caraway seed is sometimes introduced.

The mixing machines-of which there are many different makes are in the main all the same. An iron vessel mounted so as to swing, is the essential part. In this vessel a double dasher, or mixer, is mounted; and is turned by means of gearing driven by a belt. When the dough has been thoroughly mixed, it is automatically removed from the machine and allowed to "raise," or ferment, in a steam-heated room. A machine has been devised, and is in use in a number of bread factories, to form the dough into loaves, but opinions among bakers differ as to its merits in its present stage. In the majority of places, the shaping and weighing are done by hand. A quick eye and a skill obtained only through

fermented mass is dropped into the moulding and oven rooms through chutes. The wheat dough and the rye dough are transferred by different passages.

The actual process of baking the bread. is, of course, accomplished by essentially the same means as ever, only that the oldstyle oven, heated with wood, has disappeared. In the old oven, the fire was raked out when the required temperature had been reached, and the bread baked in the slowly cooling interior. The modern oven is heated continually and evenly. The cut dough is placed on large steel slabs, or tables, capable of holding from 200 to 300 loaves, which are then wheeled on a track to the front of the ovens. Each oven is lighted by electricity, and will accommodate as a rule