The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 25, 1898, Page 20

20 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1898. Girls in Our Public Schools Are Learning to WENTY - FIV little girls cooking a Christmas dinner, and every one as eager and anxious about her own special dish as if Santa Claus himself were com- ing to dine. This is what I found at the Hearst Grammar School. Madge Rix was weighing out flour for a ple, while Helen Costa measured out the shortening into the same dish. At her own small gas stove Teresa Shearer cooked the pumpkin for filling for the pie. She had just finished cut- ting up the yellow cubes, and, with her assistant—each dish was made by a principal and an assistant—was scrap- ing up the bits of peeling and putting her table in order. Bread was rather too much of an un- dertaking, so biscuits were making in- stead, .nd Mary Burfield rolled them out, while Anna Mache buttered the tin on which they were to bake. Violet Fowler lighted her stove and set the cranberries on to cook, but I am sure she hing d the proc by with a Potat overassiduous stirring handled wooden spoon. boiling and celery was b arefully washed. But the most important were the girls at the sink. They sre stuf- find a turkey, and there was more stuf- fing than space whe the stuffing goes. “Oh, 1 know what—cakes and the stuffing was patted into little round cakes and put in beside the turkey to brown. All the odors, even the onions, went out into the halls and made the boys wish for once they were girls and could be In Mi T cooking class, Even the teachers “‘to sign or not to sign, salary or no salary,” thoughts came back and thev remembered that it was Christmas time and that the little girls were of their year’s 1 and cooking a din- ner to be sent to a poor family. They are the children who live in the neighborhood of Telegraph Hill, most- {CAOXOROROROROXOXORONOXCXCXOROXO, Pupils of One of the Grammar Schools Get Up an Elaborate Dinper—What They Think of Their Work. L 7/ 7/ 25 G 77 The Twenty-five Little Girls Were in Their White Aprons Cooking a Christmas Dinner, and Every One Was as Eager and @nxious About Her Own Special Dish as if Santa ly foreigners, or, I beg their pardon, Americans; for they are ail Americans, even if they cannot speak much Eng- lish They are all like one little girl whom I asked what nationality she might be. “Yes, I am American. r, he other. vas a bright child, and an housewifely ways and was one of the best little cooks in the class. They are mostly Italian names on the roll call and a good many Gree “Why do vou learn to cook?” one little black-eyed girl. “So when I can cook the men won't want to 2o to a saloon and drink. Th will eat so much they can't drink Maybe it was not exactly as Miss Toomey had taught the class, but at least the child had an idea, and it was not such a bad one for a little girl to {ONOXOXORONOROROXORONOROKO I was in Be I asked @ have either. She does teach them that “a lady first of all a “loaf giver,” and that she is not a real lady unless she knows how to do a lady’s work in the world. There is not much woman's rights taught in the class, as the term is usually applied, but Miss Toomey tries to teach her classes of girls what it means to be born a girl who will some day grow up Into a woman and be a wife and mother. Every one of her girls must take in some of the talks. and when the time comes for her to make her own special turnings in life she will surely not forget what she has learned in this class. The children go to Miss Toomey for half a day’s lesson twice a wWeek. She has a ‘‘cooking center’” and a room fitted up with small tables with each an individual gas stove. There is a large gas range, a sink and all the usual kitchen paraphernalia besides.. The children do the work themselves and & it is part of the regular school curri- culum. Unlike Kkitchen garden work the course contains no, plays or songs or make-believes of any kind. One lesson will be on potatoes, say. They have potatoes and cook them. When the po- tatoes are done the pupils mash some and some are made into potato cakes, some creamed. Then they warm them over and learn the best methods of economical use for scraps. Another day it may be onions or apples or carrots or any other vegetable. In teaching how to cook meals Miss Toomey has charts and the children learn how to choose meat when they go to the butcher’s and what cut of beef or mutton to boil or roast or broil, and all the whys and wherefores. The girls average about thirteen years and have been taking cooking for a year. One examination which Miss Toomey gave them was to provide a Claus Himself Were Coming to Dine. dinner for four persons with an outlay of $§1. Each child wrote out her shop- ping list and it was offered before she made her purchases, which she must do by herself. The flour, sugar, butter, salt and all staples required were pur- chased from the school supply, but the meats and vegetables and fruits were bought outside, One child whose sweet face and sim- ple manners tell of a ‘comfortable, thrifty mothershad in her menu: Stewed breast of mutton with car- rots. Boiled rice. Baked tomatoes. Artichokes with mayonnaise dressing. Apple pie and coffee. The selection and combination being made entirely by herself and the din- ner served in a way that would tempt any man ‘“to eat so much he could not drink anything.” She is a little girf, born in Germany, and Miss Toomey says that the.Ger- man children take to the cooking and housework more naturally than the children of any other nationality, and that the Americans are well down on the list. It was a question in. my mind how do the fathers and mothers on an aver- age feel regarding the cooking lessons. I went to the homes of four of the girls, selected at chance. In oné family, Ger- man, the father was very proud of his daughter. It was a very well-to-do home and the man was evidently pros- perous and himself well educated. “It is very good for Hilda. We find everything different here from the old country. My wife speaks no English, and buying things is very hard for her. The children think whatever is Ameri- can-cooked is better than our way, and so we let Hilda have her way. They must live here. . I am glad to have them get to be Americans just as soon as they can, and I guess they lesza ¥ fastest in the school.” Oftentimes when a girl must go tq work and leave school she can managq to still attend the cooking lessons, Which is always permitted. But, Miss Toomey,” I asked her, “it must cost a good sum for materials?" “Not very much, no. Many grocers are glad to have me use their flour on baking powder or spices, and give it tq me just for the advertisement. The ex pense for the last year averaged $6 g month, which is not a great deal.” “How about the supply now, is it like the coal and salaries?” “Yes, I am sorry to say it is just the same.” “That does not look very poverty stricken,” I said, nodding to the basket in which she had packed the dinner which the children had prepared, and which was destined for a family whera sickness had disabled the breadwinner. “But it is the last, I am afraid. I have been buying materials out of my own money for several months. 1 could stand it so long as I got my salary, but I cannot do it any longer.” “Surely the board will refund the money you have’ expended.” “Mr. Webster says it is extremely unlikely, and told me I did it entirely at my own risk.” There_are three other ‘“cooking cen- ters” where the girls of the sixth and seventh grades learn to cook and wash dishes and tables and floors. The othen classes have to meet different condi- i however, they take in mostly the wealthier class. It is very seldom that a child in any of the classes is not interested in thg work. It is half play to them, and af rom 12 to 14 every girl who is right minded Is beginning to realize a little of what it means to be a girl and not a boy. She is beginning to see that she has' to live her life, and is thinking of what that life may be. It is the best age for her to take to herself the lessons she learns twice a week in her cooking cl HELEN GREY. - America has 22,000 periodicals. :" New York has 3000 oyster shops. O il i Clelolcloleeicloleieiololeiclofofolelelefof ool lofofoY YoloX XX Yo Yo Yo YooY T fatotoo o T T o e oo rorororerere rotororere] Curious Javanese Puppets That Have Been Sent to Uncle Sam as a Christmas Present. ’ Java Marionettes, Just Presented to the These are play-actors of wood and leather, whose business it is to represent divinities in a sort of Oriental passion play. In form they are remarxably hideous, but dressed in many gaudy colors, while to the hands of each one are attached long siender sticks, by means of which the arms are manipulated by the manager and made to perform whatever gestures may be requisite Washington Museum as a Christmas Gift. ASHINGTON, Dec. 25.—The National Museum has just recelved a most interesting Christmas gift in the shape of a collection of marionettes from Java, in which coun- try puppets of this kind are believed to have originated. These are play- actors of wood and leather, whose busi- ness it is to represent divinities in a sort of Oriental passion play. In form they are remarkably hideous, but dressed in many gaudy colors, while to the hands of each one are attached long slender sticks, by means of which’ the arms are manipulated by the man- ager and made to perform whatever gestures may be requisite. Java is unquestionably the earliest home of the pantomime. In ordinary theatrical performances, where the parts are taken by human beings, the actors themselves utter not a word, the entire play being recited by a man who occupies a sort of prompter's box. From this style of thing it is not such & great transition to the pantomime show of the marionettes, whose talking is all done for them by the showman. The latter carries his puppets about with him in a chest, and there is al- ways an orchestra of two or more play- ers who furnish a sort of musical ac- companiment to the action. There is always a certain amount of ceremony of a mumbo-jumbo character, includ- ing the burning of incense and the shutting out of a copper basin to re- ceive offerings of food for the spirits which are imagined to be hovering around.. The food, of which the spirits take only an immaterial part, is actual- ly a perquisite of the manager and mu- siclans. The marionettes are shown over the top of .a small fence constructed for the purpose, and in very much the same manner as Punch and Judy. In front the audlence Is divided as to sexes in a very curious way. . Men occupy the first rows of ‘“orchestra stalls,” so to speak, while behind them a big sheet is suspended, In the rear of which the women sit. . Thus the men see the play, while the women view only the shadows | of the mantkins on a sheet. ) | Professor Otis T. Mason of the Na- tional Museum says that among all primitive people the drama is religious in character, secular plays being un- known. Probably the ancient Egypt- ians used in some such way the me- chanical dolls whose remains are often found in mummy coffins. At the feast | of Osiris marfonettes played an impor- tant part in the pageant, and when Rome was at the acme of her glory they flourished exceedingly. The priests of old, in Greece, Rome and Egypt, did not hesitate to furnish the images of the gods with mechanical devices by which the divinities could be made to {nod their heads and indicate by other | movements whatever wishes they might be desired to convey. Such im. /ages were, in fact, only marionettes of large size. After the fall of Rome and during subsequent centuries of barbar. ism in Europe the puppets of whatever kind seem to have disappeared, to be called to life again in the middle ages, and once more for religious purposes to_a great extent, It came into fashlon to give holv | Th plays in the churches, the marionettes being made to take the parts of saints and various revered personages, the Savior himself being not omitted. This sort of sacerdotal drama obtained ex- ceptional development in Poland, where the priests organized most elaborate performances, one of the most admired being entitled “The Massacre of the In- nocents.” In this traxedy little dolls represented Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the three Magi, angels, shepherds and even the animals in the stable where Christ was born. In fact, this particular play is preserved to this day in Poland as a popular diversion, though by no means regarded in any blasphemous spirit. In another drama the Prodigal Son went through a series of unpleasant experi- ences. ‘What he was about to eat changed into skulls; the water he ‘would drink was converted into flame and finally a rock split open and re. vealed a man hanging from a gallows. The limbs of the corpse fell off one by one, then assembled themselves on the ground, and the dead man arose and pursued the prodigal. Curiously illustrative of the preva- lence of this kind of religious drama ig a word that still survives in the Span- ish language in which ‘‘retablo” means either an altar piece or a puppet show. It would appear that in course of time the employment of marionettes in churches became abused, scandals re- sulted from it, and thus the decadence of mechanical saints began. A regula- tion was passed at a synod in the Va- lencian bishopric at the beginning of the seventeenth century forbidding the representation of the Virgin and other holy personages by puppets. By this time, however, marionettes had been taken up for secular purposes. Discard- ing the solemn air of holiness they turned from grave to gay, substituting profane quips and jests for the pious remarks and judicious discourse which had formerly made up their “lines.” Their costumes and ‘“stage business” underwent corresponding alterations. This did not come about all at once. The expulsion of the marionettes from the churches was only gradually ac- complished, and it can hardly be said that the last of them have departed even yet. The mechanical saint is by no means altogether unknown in Ro- man Catholic countries at the present day, and it sometimes does some very remarkable things, calculated to stimu- late faith and to excite the awe of all true believers. The earliest perform- ances by marionettes in Europe out- side of churches were of the religious kind. One of these plays, which still survives, represents the temptation of St. Antheny. The old gentleman had an exceedingly hard time, the wife of Satan, who is a much-hedizened creature, try- ing to seduce him, while a lot of little devils attempt to steal his pig, which is represented as his only friend. At length they set the pig's tail on fire, but St. Anthony puts him out and is presently taken up aloft, where the fiends can get at him no longer. & It is said that the first marionettes of the secular kind ever seen in France were exhibited in 1868 by a man named Marion, from whom the name applied to them is derived. A century later a dentist named Brioche opened at Paris a little theater in which the actors were wooden puppets. His success was im- mense. Paris has now a good many theaters of marionettes, in which regu- lar plays in several acts are performed. ese dramas, as a rule, are not printed or even written, being simply memar= ized by the showman. On this account there is no censorship by the authori- ties, and many political and other al- lusions are introduced which would not be permitted on the ordinary stage. The puppets wear fine dresses and their | faces are carved and colored, so as to be as life-like as possible. The typical Briton, in elaborate plaid and eye- glasses, is a favorite character. Some marionettes are as much as three feet high, and are cxhibted at regular theaters. The furniture and all other things on the stage are so care- fully proportioned to the human figures | represented that the latter actually | seem to be life-size. The best puppets of this kind have paper heads, bodies and thighs of wood and arms and legs partly of lead. Thus constructed they | obey the slightest impulse given to them and their movements can be con- trolled with wonderful precision. From the top of the head of each doll issues an iron rod, by which it is easily trans- ported from one part of the stage to another. This rod is, in fact, a tube, through which pass a number of ‘threads connected with various parts of the anatomy of the puppet. One de- vice that has been adopted to conceal these threads from the spectators is a screen of very fine perpendiculan threads, drawn tight, which is placed in front of the stage, so as to inter- vene between the audience and the little performers. The threads that move the marionettes blend with the threads of the screen in such a way as to deceive the most attentive eye. —_————— There are titles that are worth dying for. We have always envied the ruler o Swat, certain rajahs, the Mad Mullah, more than Mr. Sousa, the March King, or the Czar of all the Russias. And would you have “The Turquois King of the Jarillas” die peacefully in his’ bed like any Mr. Higgins? A man with such a title should meet an unusual death. We regret only for the sake of romanticism that he was shot w eating breakfast. Did “The Turquois King of the Jarillas” wear his favorite jewel in a ring, and did it give him no omen of approaching death? The Sieur de Teligny, going with 1200 men against Nantes, stopped his ex= edition because the stone of his ring ell from the setting. The thought of titles reminds us tha* Mr. Francis de Pressense loses more than | the decoration of the Legion of Honor by his honorable conduct in the Dreyfus case. The wearers of this decoration re- celve also a stipend. Holders of grand crosses receive each about $300 a year, the grand officers $400, the commanders $200, the officers $100, and the chevaliers $0. Since there are thirty-five grand crosses, 172 grand officers, §i2 commanders, 3964 officers and 25322 chevaliers, the Legion of Honor costs France yearly over $1,800,+ 020. Military medals in France are ac- companied with an annual payment, and over 51,000 wearers cost the Government over $1.000,000 each year.—Boston Journal. —_——— A stalk of cotton was grown on Wil- liam Newton's place, in this county, which is probably the largest, ever grown within its limits. It measured 16% feet higk. is 10 inches around the stalk near the ground, is 12 feet across, Wwelghing 45 pounds, and containing 800 bolls and squares. Willlam Newton, W. F. Rhodes and J. M. 'Hawkins tes- { tify as to the size, weight and measure- ment, and also as to the number of bolls, etc., on it, and thay say that they will challenge anybody in the State to prove-that it is not the most remarkable stalk of cotton ever growsn in Missis~ sippl.—Greenville (Miss.) Advocate.