n. Why should she not
draw and explain a refrigerator as well as an air-pump? Both are to be
explained on philosophical principles. When a schoolgirl, in her
chemistry, studies the reciprocal action of acids and alkalies, what
is there to hinder the teaching her its application to the various
processes of cooking where acids and alkalies are employed? Why should
she not be led to see how effervescence and fermentation can be made
to perform their office in the preparation of light and digestible
bread? Why should she not be taught the chemical substances by which
food is often adulterated, and the test by which such adulterations
are detected? Why should she not understand the processes of
confectionery, and know how to guard against the deleterious or
poisonous elements that are introduced into children's sugar-plums and
candies? Why, when she learns the doctrine of mordants, the substances
by which different colors are set, should she not learn it with some
practical view to future life, so that she may know how to set the
color of a fading calico or restore the color of a spotted one? Why,
in short, when a girl has labored through a profound chemical work,
and listened to courses of chemical lectures, should she come to
domestic life, which presents a constant series of chemical
experiments and changes, and go blindly along as without chart or
compass, unable to tell what will take out a stain, or what will
brighten a metal, what are common poisons and what their antidotes,
and not knowing enough of the laws of caloric to understand how to
warm a house, or of the laws of atmosphere to know how to ventilate
one? Why should the preparation of food, that subtile art on which
life, health, cheerfulness, good temper, and good looks so largely
depend, forever be left in the hands of the illiterate and vulgar?

"A benevolent gentleman has lately left a large fortune for the
founding of a university for women; and the object is stated to be to
give to women who have already acquired a general education the means
of acquiring a professional one, to fit themselves for some employment
by which they may gain a livelihood.

"In this institution the women are to be instructed in bookkeeping,
stenography, telegraphing, photographing, drawing, modeling, and
various other arts; but, so far as I remember, there is no proposal to
teach domestic economy as at least _one_ of woman's professions.

"Why should there not be a professor o