see George R. Sims, How the Poor Live, 1889 - click here

A BOARD SCHOOL COOKERY CLASS.

Many people will be surprised to learn that cookery classes are so well established in any of the London Board schools as our view shows is clearly the case at the Kilburn Lane centre. The photograph was taken in the midst of the morning's work. Twenty-four girls attending the Kilburn Lane School, all with neat pinafores on, form the class. Half of them - the girls to the right - are occupied in copying recipes while the other dozen are busily engaged in preparing various homely dishes suitable for an artisan's dinner. The expert teacher has spent the first hour of the morning in explaining how the work is to be done, and the young plain-cooks-in-the-making are now showing in practice how far they' have mastered their lesson.

A BOARD SCHOOL CARPENTRY CLASS. 

Cookery for the girls carpentry for the boys. Such is the programme carried out at the Kilburn Lane Higher Grade School. Our illustration shows a room at this school devoted to manual training, admirable accommodation being provided for twenty boys. Each boy in attendance receives weekly two-and-a-half hours instruction in practical woodwork, drawing, and the growth and structure of the different varieties of hard and soft wood. The lads are also taught how to grind and sharpen the tools they use. It is not at all astonishing that for most boys, whatever they may think of other lessons, this branch of elementary education has an irresistible attraction. f he authorities are satisfied that such work fulfils its purpose, which is the training of the eyes and hands to habits of accuracy and neatness.

MORNING ASSEMBLY AT A BOARD SCHOOL 

Just as at the large public schools of England the boys meet together for morning prayers, so in like fashion the day begins at the Kilburn Lane Higher Grade School, the carpentry and cookery classes of which have already been illustrated (pp. 238, 239). Our picture in this case embraces no fewer than five hundred boys. First a hymn is sung, accompanied by the string band - numbering in all some sixty boys, here portrayed waiting for the conductor's beat - and by a youthful organist. This band is, all things considered, an excellent one, and its employment conduces greatly to the reverent interest taken by the boys in the proceedings. Prayers, read by the headmaster, follow, after which the scholars go to their respective class-rooms to enter upon the studies of the day.

Physical Drill

Playtime

George R. Sims (ed.), Living London, 1902