e
in the assertion that it has invariably been found that a good
understanding of their management has resulted in success followed
inevitably by enthusiasm._

The Practical Value and Use of Fireless Cookers

This twentieth century is the age of progress in many directions, but
most of all in Domestic Science. Never before has so much attention been
devoted to the home. Journalists are giving columns of space to this
topic. Churches are directing their efforts to the betterment of the
home. Women's Clubs and charitable organizations have taken up the study
of the home. The most important result of all this action and thought is
the widespread awakening to the fact that the social and moral standing
of the home is directly dependent upon its hygienic and economic
condition.

In view of this fact, the National Federation of Women's Clubs has
practically covered the United States with their County, State, and
National Committees on Housekeeping. They know that bad cooking in the
home means unsatisfied stomachs, to gratify whose cravings the saloons
are filled; it means anemic children, a physical condition that tends to
produce criminals; it means premature funerals. To remedy these evils,
churches, journalists, philanthropists, clubs are alike working, and all
are working along the same lines--that is, better home furnishings,
better fuels, better utensils, more efficient, more economic, and less
laborious methods of housekeeping. They have not only sought and
introduced new inventions, but they have studied the past and adapted
and bettered the old.

Among the adaptations of the old ideas with new and modern improvements
is the fireless cooker. Ages ago Norwegian and German peasant women,
obliged to be away from the house all day working in the fields, knew
the secret of bringing food to the boiling point and then continuing its
cooking and keeping it hot by packing it in an improvised box of hay. In
the evening when the women returned, weary and worn from their field
labor, there was the family dinner all ready to serve.

German club women were the first to see the value of this idea adapted
to the needs of the German working class of the present day. These
German club women revived the hay boxes and distributed numbers of them
among poor families and began an educational campaign on their use. The
American manufacturer, ever on the alert for ideas, was quick to
perceive the economic and commercial advanta