of the time is devoted to sewing and theoretical lessons. The cooking pupils work under the supervision of the teachers, purchase the supplies, settle the accounts, make and bake the bread, prepare the meals, and serve at table. In the sewing course the girls mend, darn, remake old garments, cut and fit, draught patterns, and in fact complete entirely the ordinary under and over garments worn by women and children. Tuition is free. Three courses are held each year.

HOUSEKEEPING SCHOOL, MORLANWELZ.

The equipment of this school includes a kitchen, laundry, sewing room, bread oven, provision room, and cellar.

Classes are held every week day from 8.30 a. m. to 4 p. m. with an interval of an hour and a half at midday. The attendance reaches from 50 to 80 pupils, who, to enter, must be 13 years old and must have completed the primary school studies. A forfeit of 3 franes (58) cents) is deposited, to be returned if attendance has been regular. Instruction is free and the course may be completed in one year.

The programme of study includes domestic economy, elements of hygiene and of accounts, kitchen work and needlework-in fact, practice in all the duties of housekeeping, with instruction as to qualities of foods, the greater or less nutritive value of different food-stuffs, their relative digestibility, the best modes of cooking, etc. Opportunity is thus afforded to acquire the knowledge and skill necessary to conduct a modest home, or to secure good positions in well-to-do families.

A convent school at Morlanwelz has a domestic section subsidized by the government and well managed, where all the housekeeping arts are taught cooking, laundering, sewing, and fine embroidery. These classes are numerously attended and productive of much good among the working population. Small wages are paid to the children for sewing and embroidery.

HOUSEKEEPING SCHOOL, LOUVAIN.

This school for domestic work at Louvain has been opened in connection with a convent where boarding pupils are received; and the cooking and housekeeping classes are turned to practical use in providing for the daily wants of these internes. The intention is to train domestic servants; and a few girls who have followed the course have already secured positions in families. The classes are of too recent establishment to enable one to say whether they will succeed as a domestic training school. Of the utility of the instruction to the pupil in her own home and in after life there can be no question.

To multiply examples of these excellent housekeeping schools is useless. Whether annexed to the public schools, as at Verviers, Ixelles, and Ostend; to the night schools, as at Liege; to trade schools, hereafter to be described; to normal schools, as at Brussels; or whether existing as separate institutions with a corps of teachers and assistants,

the domestic classes are fulfilling a most useful mission, and bid fair to mitigate, if not to cure, some of the worst evils of industrial life.

TRADE SCHOOLS FOR GIRLS.

The Association for the Technical Education of Women was founded in Brussels in 1865, with a view to supplying omissions in the education for girls organized by the public authorities. Women dependent on their own exertions found themselves, it was urged, subject to most unfavorable conditions. Compelled to undergo a long apprenticeship under direction far from intelligent, or under employers bent on keeping their work people in menial and inferior positions, the toiler labored for the meanest wages. Chance, too, not aptitude, governed the choice of a profession; and competition and superior skill, on the part of rivals in industry, often drove the most deserving workers to the wall.

TRADE SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, RUE DU MARAIS, BRUSSELS.

With the aim of ameliorating the evils of apprenticeship, of training girls for special pursuits and opening up resources which can be pursued at home, of enlarging and extending the education acquired in primary schools-but which is so often forgotten in the struggle for existence-,the first trade school for girls was established at Brussels. Eighty-four members agreed to pay annually 36 francs ($6.95), and several subscribed largely. The munificence of Senator J. R. Bischoffsheim, however, put the enterprise later on a firm basis, and it was installed in its present quarters, 94 rue du Marais. From 1868 the city of Brussels adopted the school as a communal institution, without, however, depriving it of its independent government. It is still managed by a council of administration composed of fifteen members. Their meeting room is filled with the best productions of the drawing and painting classes. Every three months a conference, presided over by a gov ernment inspector, unites all the teachers for the purpose of discussion and criticism of a lesson given by one of the staff of the school, either practical or scientific. In 1878 the award of prizes was abolished, the pupils being trained to work well for work's sake, and not for the sake of obtaining a recompense. Exhibitions are given constantly, enabling the public to see the high standards attained in all branches, and putting the pupils in communication with employers to whom their skill and services may be useful.

The school was intended more for children of the middle ranks than for the very poor. In fact, it is the hardest working parents who are obliged to avail themselves of the earnings of their offspring and can not permit them to remain in class long enough to be really trained. In arranging the course of study such branches were selected as would afford a girl the best chance to become self supporting. Indeed, indus

tries never before pursued in Brussels were actually created, as that of making artificial flowers, for which article Belgium had hitherto been dependent on Paris. Though the attempt was greatly opposed, the result has been that many Brussels shops now manufacture flowers. The pupils trained at the school are competent forewomen and teachers of the art, because their instruction covered the making and putting together of all kinds of flowers, whereas shop apprentices usually learn only one branch of the business. At first the pupil of the classes is not so rapid as the shop apprentice who turns out one flower year after year; but with some training at the shop she becomes a far better worker than those never at the school, and she is besides capable of teaching scientifically. So good is the class work, however, that the flower dealer who furnishes material for it and buys the product from the school makes money by his contract.

The introduction of trade classes was opposed, too, by well estab lished industries, such as dressmaking. Dressmakers wanted apprentices who would drudge, run errands, or fashion one part of a garment all their lives. They objected to applicants who claimed to be able to make all parts of a garment, and who expected higher pay in consequence. The more enlightened women of the profession, however, lend all their influence to the trade school. Through the efforts of two of the leading dressmakers of Brussels, artists in their profession, who serve on the jury of award, drawing was made obligatory in the trade school, rue du Marais. In first-class establishments, they insisted, the work won en first see the client, then sketch a design that suits her, draw the costume, and calculate by measurement the amount and cost of material, thus securing appropriateness and economy. Again, the fashionable dressmakers of Brussels furnish the school with new patterns as styles change. Their testimony is that girls who are graduated from the institution are more valuable, after some shop training, than workers not educated there, and that they often become forewomen and heads of departments. Indeed, the pupil, after getting a few years' practical experience in the work room, threatens to supersede the old line dressmaker entirely, since she knows more theory; she can design, she can create. On the other hand, girls leaving the school after three years' training sometimes assume to possess knowledge which only current practice can give. They have the theory of ordinary garments only, not of the higher creations of the dressmakers' art-artistic toilettes such as the luxury of the present day demands.

This school has taken almost a normal character and aims to reach young women in fair circumstances who are unwilling to work under the disadvantageous conditions that obtain in most workrooms, with long overtime and small pay. The intention is to train teachers and head workers. An important study is the history of costumes, and the drawing courses are very full and advanced, reproducing the costumes of all nations in all ages. The student knows just where

to seek sketches of toilets of a certain fashion or period, whereas uneducated dressmakers, preparing for historical pageants, fancy balls, or theatrical performances, spend hours in a library without finding the desired drawings.

Severe competitive tests are imposed on all applicants for teachers' places. Five candidates for a position as director of dressmaking at a school in the provinces were each given five separate tests before a committee: 1st, to write a description of a costume; 2nd, to draw it; 3d, to calculate the materials required and the cost; 4th, to make it; and 5th, to fit and adjust it finally.

Three applicants were marked 70 each, and two 100 each, the latter having had, beside the school course, two years' practice in a shop. Moreover, each candidate was required to give a lesson on this costume to a class; and in this demonstration all five were found deficient, none as yet having mastered the science of pedagogy. All, therefore, must study for some time before reporting for a second examination in the art of imparting ideas.

As yet in Brussels painting on china has not become a remunerative industry for girls, great experience being needed; but excellent work is done at the school of the rue du Marais. Some students go on into higher art, some give lessons, and a few successfully design stained glass windows. In order to establish pupils and at the same time advertise the institution an employment bureau is conducted, through which girls are placed in good positions in industry and commerce.

The course of general instruction, pursued in the forenoon while the trade classes occupy the afternoon, includes French, Flemish, arithmetic, history, geography, natural science, hygiene, domestic economy, drawing, singing, and, in the commercial course, English or German. Drawing is the basis of preparation for all the trades, and is thoroughly taught. Lace designing, painting on porcelain, dress and underwear making, millinery, and the manufacture of artificial flowers are the chief industries followed. Girls who take the course in commerce understand bookkeeping by double entry, speak German or English, and have some acquaintance with geography and commercial law. The number of pupils is nearly 400, and the school budget amounts to 60,000 francs ($11,580).

The Association for the Technical Education of Women believes that it is a mistake to teach women to earn their living unless they are also taught culinary arts. When one can earn in two hours enough to hire service for the day there is great temptation to neglect the household, to spend one's life abroad, to go to restaurants and cafés. To counteract this tendency cooking is taught in the school of the rue du Marais; and in the vigorous new offshoot of the parent school in the rue des Terres Neuves housekeeping lessons are a specialty. Parents protested; they objected to their children becoming "domestics." The president and council of administration persevered and finally declared

that no child should have lunch in the building except those who would enter the cooking classes and prepare a meal at stated times. At last that department proved a success; and in most other trade schools of the kingdom cooking classes are now established features, started either by the government or by committees of women interested in industrial education; but there are yet great gaps to fill in this species of training.

Graduates from the rue du Marais school are employed as teachers in almost every trade school for girls in Belgium, and also in Holland and other foreign countries where their services are in great demand.

TRADE SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, RUE DU POINÇON, BRUSSELS.

A trade school nearly as old as that of the rue du Marais and equally important is in active operation in the rue du Poinçon, under the patronage of liberal thinkers and progressive educators-the outgrowth of private initiative also. Beginning with extremely modest resources, and about 70 pupils in 1873, in 1874 it had 150 students and the city of Brussels recognized its usefulness and subsidized it. In 1879 it moved to its present quarters, rue du Poinçon, with 229 pupils, of whom 104 held free fellowships. In 1882 it became a communal institution, managed by an administrative council of fifteen members.

The instruction comprises general studies, obligatory upon all pupils, and special or trade courses, one or the other of which each student must follow. Study is pursued in the afternoon, trades are taught in the morning, consisting of sewing in all its branches, underwear making, dressmaking, embroidery, drawing, and commerce. This school took the prize in Antwerp in 1885 and at Paris in 1889 for the most practical work exhibited. The courses aim at being practical above all things, and the results are admirable. In the dressmaking classes it is interesting to see any wrap or gown a visitor may have on sketched rapidly on the blackboard by a pupil, reduced to scale, a pattern of the garment cut out of muslin and fitted on the form, all in about twenty minutes.

In the sewing departments pupils the first year make up their own materials or sew for the crèche. By the third year they are able to do dainty work, ball dresses and bridal robes; but on graduation the fact is impressed on them that they lack practice in details of the art and knowledge of fashions and styles, and that, before setting up in business for themselves, they should serve a year or two in a dressmaking shop of the highest class.

The history of art is carefully studied, and pupils originate designs for embroidery and lace. In embroidery there are special courses. The Bohemian government sends pupils to this school to learn the art in order to teach it in the schools of Bohemia. Great attention is paid to the drawing; and the exercises of students of 13 preparing to be dressmakers compare more than favorably with what is called high