"Domestic Science" was still in its infancy--the name had not yet been coined--but _Punch_ was deeply interested in the training of girls of all classes in household duties. Throughout the mid-Victorian period he is seldom so serious or sympathetic as when the improvement of cookery is discussed.[21] In earlier years he had been eloquent on the subject of the underpayment of certain classes of servants. These complaints practically disappear from 1857 onwards, though he does not fail to rebuke wealthy mistresses for the scandalously inadequate and insanitary accommodation which was habitually provided for servants in the lordliest mansions. Even the most pampered menials had to sleep in cupboards in the basements or in the attics. But the new note of independence in woman servants is often dwelt upon, and not always in a sympathetic spirit, while in 1861 their extravagance, destructiveness and distaste for needlework form the preface to a noteworthy pronouncement on "Servant-galism _versus_ Schooling," which comes rather as a revelation to those who regard the unpopularity of domestic service as a modern development:--
With an ear to these complaints, and an eye to the instruction of girls in humble life, not merely in the knowledge of how to read and write, but in the useful arts of sewing, cookery, and housekeeping, which are no more learnt by instinct than anatomy or algebra, geography or Greek, a lady four years since established a training school at Norwich, where the object was, she tells us:
"To give the opportunity for gaining a good education, with the addition of plain sewing, mending and cutting out; and also (what every mother was to understand on putting her girl to school) such practical acquaintance with cookery and housework, under my excellent housekeeper, that every girl might know how a house should be kept, and should acquire habits which would hereafter make all the difference between a tidy and happy home or the reverse."
MISSIS AND THE YOUNG LADIES (together): "Goodness gracious, J'mima! What have you---- _Where's_ your cr'n'lin?" (This word snappishly.)
JEMIMA: "Oh, 'm, please, 'm, which I understood as they was a goin' out, 'm----"
[Illustration: WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE SERVANT GALS?