is to lay down clearly certain fixed
principles; to show you how to economize thoroughly, yet get a better
result than by the expenditure of perhaps much more material. Before our
course ends, you will have had performed before you every essential
operation in cooking, and will know, so far as I can make you know,
prices, qualities, constituents, and physiological effects of every type
of food. Beyond this, the work lies in your own hands."

Armed with manuals,--American, English, French,--bent upon systematizing
the subject, yet finding none entirely adequate, gradually, and in spite
of all effort to the contrary, I found that my teaching rested more and
more on my own personal experience as a housekeeper, both at the South and
at the North. The mass of material in many books was found confusing and
paralyzing, choice seeming impossible when a dozen methods were given. And
for the large proportion of receipts, directions were so vague that only a
trained housekeeper could be certain of the order of combination, or
results when combined. So from the crowd of authorities was gradually
eliminated a foundation for work; and on that foundation has risen a
structure designed to serve two ends.

For the young housekeeper, beginning with little or no knowledge, but
eager to do and know the right thing, not alone for kitchen but for the
home as a whole, the list of topics touched upon in Part I. became
essential. That much of the knowledge compressed there should have been
gained at home, is at once admitted: but, unfortunately, few homes give
it; and the aim has been to cover the ground concisely yet clearly and
attractively. As to Part II., it does not profess to be the whole art of
cooking, but merely the line of receipts most needed in the average
family, North or South. Each receipt has been tested personally by the
writer, often many times; and each one is given so minutely that failure
is well-nigh impossible, if the directions are intelligently followed. A
few distinctively Southern dishes are included, but the ground covered has
drawn from all sources; the series of excellent and elaborate manuals by
well-known authors having contributed here and there, but the majority of
rules being, as before said, the result of years of personal experiment,
or drawn from old family receipt-books.

To facilitate the work of the teacher, however, a scheme of lessons is
given at the end, covering all that can well be taught in the o