PART II

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| |

| OTHER VOCATIONAL |

| GUIDANCE BOOKS |

| |

| J. ADAMS PUFFER, Editor |

| |

| _VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE--THE TEACHER AS A COUNSELOR_ |

| By J. Adams Puffer |

| |

| _A VOCATIONAL READER_ |

| By C. Park Pressey |

| |

| _VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE FOR THE PROFESSIONS_ |

| By Edwin Tenney Brewster |

| |

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"Vocational guidance seeks the largest realization of the

possibilities of every child and youth, measured in terms of

worthy service."

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

CAMP FIRE GIRLS

The lessons of patriotism, kindness, and industry taught by the Camp

Fire Girls' organization make it a power for good]

VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE FOR GIRLS

by

MARGUERITE STOCKMAN DICKSON

Author of _From the Old World to the New_, _A Hundred Years of

Warfare. 1689-1789_, _Stories of Camp and Trail_, _Pioneers and

Patriots in American History_

Rand Mcnally & Company

Chicago New York

1919

THE CONTENTS

PAGE

A Foreword ix

PART I. PRESENT-DAY IDEALS OF WOMANHOOD

CHAPTER

I. WOMAN'S PLACE IN SOCIETY 3

II. THE IDEAL HOME 18

III. ESTABLISHING A HOME 27

IV. RUNNING THE DOMESTIC MACHINERY 49

PART II. GUIDING GIRLS TOWARD THE IDEAL

V. THE EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES INVOLVED 75

VI. TRAINING THE LITTLE CHILD 86

VII. TEACHING THE MECHANICS OF HOUSEKEEPING 102

VIII. THE GIRL'S INNER LIFE 122

IX. THE ADOLESCENT GIRL 130

X. THE GIRL'S WORK 151

XI. THE GIRL'S WORK (Continued)--CLASSIFICATION

OF OCCUPATIONS 163

XII. THE GIRL'S WORK (Continued)--VOCATIONS AS

AFFECTING HOMEMAKING 194

XIII. THE GIRL'S WORK (Continued)--VOCATIONS

DETERMINED BY TRAINING 203

XIV. MARRIAGE 218

Suggested Readings 241

The Index 243

A LIST OF THE PORTRAITS

PAGE

LOUISA M. ALCOTT 221

RUTH MCENERY STUART 223

LOUISE HOMER AND HER FAMILY 225

MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON 227

COLONEL AND MRS. ROOSEVELT WITH MEMBERS OF THEIR FAMILY 229

JULIA WARD HOWE AND HER GRANDDAUGHTER 231

CAROLINE BARTLETT CRANE 233

ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 235

AMELIA E. BARR 237

A FOREWORD

Fortunate are we to have from the pen of Mrs. Dickson a book on the

vocational guidance of girls. Mrs. Dickson has the all-round life

experiences which give her the kind of training needed for a broad and

sympathetic approach to the delicate, intricate, and complex problems

of woman's life in the swiftly changing social and industrial world.

Mrs. Dickson was a teacher for seven years in the grades in the city

of New York. She then became the partner of a superintendent of

schools in the business of making a home. In these early homemaking

years there came from the pen of Mrs. Dickson a series of historical

books for the grades which have placed her among the leading

educational writers of the country. During the long sickness of her

husband she filled for a while two administrative positions--homemaker

and superintendent of schools.

Her three children are now in high school and are beginning to plan

for their own life work. With the broad training of homemaker, wife,

mother, teacher, writer, and administrator, Mrs. Dickson has the

combination of experiences to enable her to introduce teachers and

mothers to the very difficult problems of planning wisely big life

careers for our girls.

The book is so plainly and guardedly written that it can also be used

as a textbook for the girls themselves in connection with civic and

vocational courses. The only difficulty with the book for a text is

that it is so attractively written on such vital problems that the

student will not stop reading at the end of the lesson.

J. ADAMS PUFFER

"Vocational guidance has for its ideal the granting to

every individual of the chance to attain his highest

efficiency under the best conditions it is humanly possible

to provide."

PART I

PRESENT-DAY IDEALS OF WOMANHOOD

"How to preserve to the individual his right to aspire, to

make of himself what he will, and at the same time find

himself early, accurately, and with certainty, is the

problem of vocational guidance."

VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE FOR GIRLS

CHAPTER I

WOMAN'S PLACE IN SOCIETY

Any scheme of education must be built upon answers to two basic

questions: first, What do we desire those being educated to become?

second, How shall we proceed to make them into that which we desire

them to be?

In our answers to these questions, plans for education fall naturally

into two great divisions. One concerns itself with ideals; the other,

with methods. No matter how complex plans and theories may become, we

may always reach back to these fundamental ideas: What do we want to

make? How shall we make it?

Applying this principle to the education of girls, we ask, first: What

ought girls to be? And with this simple question we are plunged

immediately into a vortex of differing opinions.

Girls ought to be--or ought to be in the way of becoming--whatever the

women of the next generation should be. So far all are doubtless

agreed. We therefore find ourselves under the necessity of restating

the question, making it: What ought women to be?

Probably never in the world's history has this question occupied so

large a place in thought as it does to-day. In familiar discussion, in

the press, in the library, on the platform, the "woman question" is an

all-absorbing topic. Even the most cursory review of the literature

of the subject leads to a realization of its importance. It leads also

into the very heart of controversy.

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

Suffrage parade in Washington. Women will parade or even fight for

their rights]

It is safe to say that no woman, in our own country at least, escapes

entirely the unrest which this controversy has brought. Even the most

conservative and "old-fashioned" of women know that their daughters

are living in a world already changed from the days of their own young

womanhood; and few indeed fail to see that these changes are but

forerunners of others yet to come. They know little, perhaps, of the

right or wrong of woman's industrial position, but "woman in industry"

is all about them. They perhaps have never heard of Ellen Key's

arraignment of existing marriage and sex relations, but they cannot

fail to see unhappy marriages in their own circle. They may care

little about the suffrage question, but they can hardly avoid hearing

echoes of strife over the subject of "votes for women." And however

much or little women are personally conscious of the significance of

these questions, the questions are nevertheless of vital import to

them all.

The "uneasy woman" is undeniably with us. We may account for her

presence in various ways. We may prophesy the outcome of her

uneasiness as the signs seem to us to point. But in the meantime--she

is here!

Naturally both radical and conservative have panaceas to suggest. The

radicals would have us believe that the question of woman's status in

the world requires an upheaval of society for its settlement. Says

one, the "man's world" must be transformed into a human world, with no

baleful insistence on the femininity of women. It is the human

qualities, shared by both man and woman, which must be emphasized. The

work of the world--with the single exception of childbearing--is not

man's work nor woman's work, but the work of the race. Woman must be

liberated from the overemphasized feminine. Let women live and work as

men live and work, with as little attention as may be to the accident

of sex.

Says another, it is the ancient and dishonored institution of marriage

which must feel the blow of the iconoclast. Reform marriage, and the

whole woman question will adjust itself.

Says still another, do away with marriage. "Celibacy is the

aristocracy of the future." Let the woman be free forever from the

drudgery of family life, free from the slavery of the marriage

relation, free to "live," to "work," to have a "career." Men and women

were intended to be in all things the same, except for the slight

difference of sex. Let us throw away the cramping folly of the ages

and let woman take her place beside man.

Not so, replies the conservative. In just so far as masculine and

feminine types approach each other, we shall see degeneracy. Men and

women were never intended to be alike.

Thus we might go on. Without the radicals there would of course be no

progress. Without the conservatives our social fabric would scarcely

hold. Between the two extremes, however, in this as in all things,

stands the great middle class, believing and urging that not social

upheaval, but better understanding of existing conditions, is the

world remedy for unrest; that not new careers, but better adjustment

of old ones, will bring peace; that not formal political power, even

though that be their just due, but the better use of powers that women

have long possessed, is most needed for the betterment of mankind.

It is not the province of this book to enter into controversy with

either radical or reactionary, but rather to search for truth which

may be used for adjusting to fuller advantage the relation of woman to

society. First of all must be recognized the fact that the "woman

movement" deserves the thoughtful attention of every teacher or other

social worker, and indeed of every thoughtful man or woman. The

movement can no longer be considered in the light of isolated surface

outbreaks. It is rather the result of deep industrial and social

undercurrents which are stirring the whole world.

In our study of the modern woman movement, which as teachers in any

department of educational work we are bound to make, the fact is

immediately impressed upon us that home life has undergone marked

changes. Conditions once favorable to the existence of the home as a

sustaining economic unit are no longer to be found. New conditions

have arisen, compelling the home, like other permanent institutions,

to alter its mode of existence in order to meet them.

Briefly reviewing the causes which have brought about these changes in

home life, we find, first, the industrial revolution. A large number

of the activities once carried on in the home have removed to other

quarters. In earlier times the mother of a family served as cook,

housemaid, laundress, spinner, weaver, seamstress, dairymaid, nurse,

and general caretaker. The father was about the house, at work in the

field, or in his workshop close at hand. The children grew up

naturally in the midst of the industries which provided for the

maintenance of the home, and for which, in part, the home existed. The

home, in those days, was the place where work was done.

With the invention of labor-saving machinery came an entire revolution

in the place and manner of work. The father of the family has been

forced by this industrial change to follow his trade from the home

workshop to the mechanically equipped factory. One by one, many of the

housewife's tasks also have been taken from the home. To-day the

processes of cloth making are practically unknown outside the factory.

Knitting has become largely a machine industry. Ready-made clothing

has largely reduced the sewing done in the home. In the matter of

food, the housekeeper may, if she chooses, have a large part of her

work performed by the baker, the canner, and the delicatessen

shopkeeper. Even the care of her children, after the years of infancy,

has been partly assumed by the state.

The home, as a place where work is done, has lost a large part of its

excuse for being. Among the poorer classes, women, like their

husbands, being obliged to earn, and no longer able to do so in their

homes, have followed the work to the factory. As a result we have

many thousands of them away from their homes through long days of

toil. Among persons of larger income, removal of the home industries

to the factory has resulted in increased leisure for the woman--with

what results we shall later consider. Practically the only

constructive work left which the woman may not shift if she will to

other shoulders, or shirk entirely, is the bearing of children and, to

at least some degree, their care in early years. The interests once

centered in the home are now scattered--the father goes to shop or

office, the children to school, the mother either to work outside the

home or in quest of other occupation and amusement to which leisure

drives her.

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

Glove making. Women, like their husbands, have followed work to the

factories]

A second change in the conditions affecting home life is found in the

increased educational aspirations of women. Once the accepted and

frankly anticipated career for a woman was marriage and the making of

a home. Her education was centered upon this end. To-day all this is

changed. A girl claims, and is quite free to obtain, an education in

all points like her brother's, and the career she plans and prepares

for may be almost anything he contemplates. She may, or may not, enter

upon the career for which she prepares. Marriage may--often

does--interfere with the career, although nearly as often the career

seems to interfere with marriage. Under the new alignment of ideals,

there is less interest shown in homemaking and more in "the world's

work," with a decided feeling that the two are entirely incompatible.

[Illustration: Keystone View Co.

Employees leaving the Elgin Watch Company factory. Thousands of women

are away from their homes through long days of toil]

The girl, educated to earn her living in the market of the world, no

longer marries simply because no other career is open to her; when

she does marry, she is less likely than formerly, statistics tell us,

to have children--the only remaining work which, in these days,

definitely requires a home. Marriage and homemaking, therefore, are no

longer inseparably connected in the woman's mind. Girls are willing to

undertake matrimony, but often with the distinct understanding that

their "careers" are not to be interfered with. To them, then, marriage

becomes more and more an incident in life rather than a life work.

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

A typical tenement house. Congestion means discomfort within the home

and decreasing possibility for satisfying there either material or

social needs]

A third disintegrating influence as affecting home life is the great

increase of city homes. Urban conditions are almost without exception

detrimental to home life. Congestion means discomfort within the home

and decreasing possibility for satisfying there either material or

social needs; while on every hand are increasing possibilities for

satisfying these needs outside the home. Family life under such

conditions often lacks, to an alarming degree, the quality of

solidarity which makes the dwelling place a home. No longer the place

where work is done, no longer the place where common interests are

shared, the home becomes only "the place where I eat and sleep," or

perhaps merely "where I sleep." The great increase of urban life

during the last half century is thus a very real menace, and, since

the agricultural communities constantly feed the towns, the menace

concerns the country-as well as the city-dweller.

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

In the cities there are increasing opportunities for satisfying

material and social needs outside the home]

Believing that for the good of coming generations the true home spirit

must be saved, we shall do well to admit at once that the old-time

home was an institution suited to its own day, but that we cannot now

call it back to being. Nor would we wish to do so. There is no

possible reason for wishing our women to spin, weave, knit, bake,

brew, preserve, clean, _if_ the products she formerly made can be

produced more cheaply and more efficiently outside the home.

There is danger, however, of generalizing too soon in regard to these

industries. There is little doubt that in some directions, at least,

the factory method has not yet brought really satisfactory results.

How many women can give you reasons _why_ they believe that it no

longer "pays" to do this or that at home as they once did? Do the

factories always turn out as good a product as the housekeeper? If

they do, does the housekeeper obtain that product with as little

expenditure as when she made it? If she spends more, can she show that

the leisure she has thus bought has been a wise purchase? Is she

justified in accepting vague generalizations to the effect that it is

better economy to buy than to make, or should she test for herself,

checking up her individual conditions and results?

The fact is that the pendulum has swung away from the "homemade"

article, and most of us have not taken the trouble to investigate

whether we are benefited or harmed. It may be that investigation will

show us that the pendulum has swung too far, and that, in spite of

factories mechanically equipped to serve us, some work may be done

much more advantageously at home. It is even possible, and in some

lines of work we know that it is a fact, that homes may be

mechanically equipped at very little cost to rival and even to

outclass the factory in producing certain kinds of products for home

consumption.

Spinning, weaving, and knitting are doubtless best left in the hands

of the factory worker. But, under present conditions, buying ready

made all the garments needed for a family may be an expensive and

unsatisfactory method if the elements of worth, wear, finish, and

individuality are worthy of consideration, just as buying practically

all foodstuffs "ready made" presents a complex and disturbing problem

to the fastidious and conscientious housewife. There is at least a

possibility that it would be as well for the home of to-day to retain

or resume, systematize, and perfect some of the industries that are

slipping or have already slipped from its grasp. It is possible to

reduce some processes to a too purely mechanical basis.

[Illustration: Keystone View Co.

Linen-mill workers. Spinning and weaving, whether of cotton, linen,

silk, or wool, are more satisfactorily done by factory workers than in

the home]

A woman lived in our town who wasn't very wise.

She had a reputation for making homemade pies.

And when she found her pies would sell, with all her might and main

She opened up a factory, and spoiled it all again.

Nonsense? Yes--but with a strong element of sense, nevertheless.

Entirely aside, however, from the industrial status of the home,

unless we are to see a practical cessation of childbearing and

rearing, homes must apparently continue to exist. No one has yet found

a substitute place for this particular industry. It is a commonly

accepted fact that young children do better, both mentally and

physically, in even rather poor homes than in a perfectly planned and

conducted institution. And we need go no farther than this in seeking

a sufficient reason for saving the home. This one is enough to enlist

our best service in aid of homemaking and home support.

From earliest ages woman has been the homemaker. No plan for the

preservation of the home or for its evolution into a satisfactory

social factor can fail to recognize her vital and necessary connection

with the problem. Therefore in answer to the question "What ought

woman to be?" we say boldly, "A homemaker." Reduced to simplest terms,

the conditions are these: if homes are to be made more serviceable

tools for social betterment, women must make them what they ought to

be. Consequently homemaking must continue to be woman's

business--_the_ business of woman, if you like--a considerable,

recognized, and respected part of her "business of being a woman." Nor

may we overlook the fact that it is only in this work of making homes

and rearing offspring that either men or women reach their highest

development. Motherhood and fatherhood are educative processes,

greater and more vital than the artificial training that we call

education. In teaching their children, even in merely living with

their children, parents are themselves trained to lead fuller lives.

"The central fact of the woman's life--Nature's reason for her--is the

child, his bearing and rearing. There is no escape from the divine

order that her life must be built around this constraint, duty, or

privilege, as she may please to consider it."[1] It is the fashion

among some women to assume that it is time all this were changed, and

that therefore it will be changed. They look forward to seeing

womankind released from this "constraint, duty, or privilege," and yet

see in their prophetic vision the race moving on to a future of

achievement. The fact, however, ignore it as we may, cannot be

gainsaid: no man-made or woman-made "emancipation" will change

nature's law.

It was well that after centuries of repression and subjection woman

sought emancipation. She needed it. But the wildest flight of fancy

cannot long conceal the ultimate fact. Woman is the mother of the

race. "The female not only typifies the race, but, metaphor aside, she

_is_ the race."[2] Emancipation can never free her from this destiny.

In the United States, where woman has the largest freedom to enter the

industrial world and maintain herself in entire independence, the

percentage of those who marry is higher than in the countries where

woman is a slave. Ninety per cent of the mature women in our country

become homemakers for a certain period, and probably over 90 per cent

are assistant homemakers for another period of years before or after

marriage.

Any vocational counselor who fails to reckon first with the homemaking

career of girls is therefore blind to the facts of life. All

education, all training, must be considered in its bearing on the one

vocation, homemaking. The time will come when the occupations of boys

and men must likewise be considered in relation to homemaking, but

that problem is not the province of this book.

Women will bear and rear the children of the future, just as they have

borne and reared the children of the past. But _under what

conditions_--the best or those less worthy? And _what women_--again,

the best or those less worthy? Has woman been freed from subjection,

from an inferior place in the scheme of life, only to become so

intoxicated with a personal freedom, with her own personal ambition,

that she fails to see what emancipation really means? Will she be

contented merely to imitate man rather than to work out a destiny of

her own? We think not. When the first flush of freedom has passed, the

pendulum will turn again and woman will find a truer place than she

knows now or has known.

Two obstacles to the successful pursuit of her ultimate vocation stand

prominently before the young woman of to-day: first, the instruction

of the times has imbued her with too little respect for her calling;

second, her education teaches her how to do almost everything except

how to follow this calling in the scientific spirit of the day. She

may scorn housework as drudgery, but no voice is raised to show her

that it may be made something else. With the advent of vocational

guidance, vocational training of necessity follows close behind. And

with vocational training must come a proper appreciation, among the

other businesses of life, of this "business of being a woman."

Must we then educate the girl to be a homemaker, and keep her out of

the industrial life which has claimed her so swiftly and in which she

has found so much of her emancipation? No, we could not, if we would,

keep her from the outside life. We must rather recognize her double

vocation and, difficult though it seem, must educate her for both

phases of her "business." She will be not only the better woman, but

the better worker, because of the very breadth of her vocational

horizon.

Training for homemaking, then, must go hand in hand with training for

some phase of industrial life. Vocational guides must consider not

only inclination and temperament, but physical condition and the

supply and demand of the industrial world. They will consider the girl

not merely as an industrial worker, but as a potential homemaker. They

will, therefore, also study the effect of various vocations upon

homemaking capabilities.

How then shall the teaching of this double vocation be approached? How

shall we, as teachers of girls, make them capable of becoming

homemakers? How shall we make them see that homemaking and the world's

work may go hand in hand, so that they will desire in time to turn

from their industrial service to the later and better destiny of

making a home? This book offers its contribution toward answering

these questions.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Ida M. Tarbell, _The Business of Being a Woman_.]

[Footnote 2: Lester F. Ward, _Pure Sociology_.]

CHAPTER II

THE IDEAL HOME

That we may understand, and to some extent formulate, the problem

which we would have girls trained to solve, we must of necessity study

homes. What must girls know in order to be successful homemakers?

A historical survey of the home leads us to the conclusion that

although times have changed, and homes have changed, and indeed all

outward conditions have changed, the spiritual ideal of home is no

different from what it has always been. The home is the seat of family

life. Its one object is the making of healthy, wise, happy, satisfied,

useful, and efficient people. The home is essentially a spiritual

factory, whether or not it is to remain to any degree whatever a

material one. "Home will become an atmosphere, a 'condition in which,'

rather than 'a place where,'" says Nearing in his _Woman and Social

Progress_. "The home is a factory to make citizenship in," writes Mrs.

Bruère.

But although this spiritual significance of home has always existed,

we are sometimes inclined to overlook the fact. Because conditions

have changed, and because our external ideals of home have changed and

are still changing, we fail to see that the foundation of home life is

still unchanged.

"I sometimes think that many women don't consciously know _why_ they

are running their homes," says Mrs. Frederick, author of _The New

Housekeeping_. We might add that many of those who do know, or think

they know, are struggling to attain to purely trivial or

fundamentally wrong ideals. It seems wise, then, for us to face at the

outset the question "What is the ideal home?"

[Illustration: Copyright by Keystone View Co.

An attractive living room in which there is that atmosphere of peace

so conducive to a happy family life]

Laying aside all preconceived notions, and remembering that changes

are coming fast in these days, let us look for the ideals which may be

common to all homes, in city or country, among rich or poor.

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

A well-arranged kitchen forms an important part of the smoothly

running mechanism of the ideal home]

First of all, the home must be comfortable, and its whole atmosphere

must be that of peace. In no other way can the tension of modern life

be overcome. This implies order and cleanliness, beauty, warmth,

light, and air; but it implies far more. It means a home planned for

the people who will occupy it, and so planned that father's needs, and

mother's, and the children's, will all be met. What does each member

of the family require of the house? A place to _live in_. And that

means far more than eating and sleeping and having a place for one's

clothes. There must be not only a place for everything, but a place

for everybody in the ideal house. The boys who wish to dabble in

electricity, the girls who wish to entertain their friends in their

own way, the tired father who wishes to read his newspaper "in peace,"

the younger children who want to pop corn or blow bubbles or play

games, all must be planned for. There will be no room too good for

use, and no furnishings so delicate that mother worries over family

contact with them. There will be a minimum of "keeping up appearances"

and a maximum of comfort and cheer. There will be little formal

entertaining, but many spontaneous good times. In addition to being

comfortable, the ideal home must be convenient. There will be places

for things, and every appliance for making work easy.

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

Contrast this old-fashioned kitchen with the modern one shown on the

opposite page]

The ideal mother, who is the mainspring of the smoothly running

mechanism of the ideal home, will be scientifically trained for her

position. Her "domestic science" will no longer be open to the

criticism that it is not science at all, nor will she feel that her

business is unworthy of scientific treatment. Always she will keep

before her the object of her work--to make of her family, _including

herself_, good, happy, efficient people. She will not be overburdened

with housework, for overworked mothers have neither time nor strength

for the higher aspects of their work. She will know how to feed

bodies, but also how to develop souls. She will clothe her children

hygienically, but she will teach them to value more the more

important vestments of modesty and gentleness and courtesy. She will

require obedience, but, as their years increase, the requirement will

be less and less obedience to authority and more and more obedience to

a right spirit within.

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

The wise mother will teach her children the true value of work by

making them wish to work with her]

She will work for her children and will make them wish to work with

her, teaching them the true value of work and sacrifice. She will play

with them, for their pleasure and development, and she will also play,

in her own way, for her own rejuvenation and her soul's good. She will

study each member of her family as an individual problem, and,

abandoning forever the idea of pressing any child's soul into the mold

that she might choose, will rather strive to aid its growth toward its

natural ideal. She will strive to hold and to be worthy of her

children's confidence, that they may turn to her in those times that

try their souls. But she will always respect the personal liberty of

either child or husband to live his own life.

She will interest herself in the interests of husband and children,

that she may remain a vital factor in their lives; and she will make

the home so delightful as to reduce to a minimum the scattering

influences that tend to destroy home life. She will weave intangible

but indestructible ties of affection, holding all together and to

herself. She will keep her interest in the outside world, so that she

may better prepare her children to live in it and may resist the

narrowing influence of her enforced temporary withdrawal. She will

take some part in civic work and social uplift, and, when her years of

child rearing are ended, in the leisure of middle age she will return

to the less circumscribed life of her youth, bending her matured

energies to the world's work.

The father of this ideal family will be first of all a man happy in

his work. The plodding, weary slave to distasteful labor can be ideal

neither as husband nor as father. Overworked fathers are quite as

impossible in our scheme as overburdened mothers. In ideal conditions

the father will have time, strength, and willingness to be more of a

factor in the home life than he sometimes is at the present time. More

than that, his early education will have included definite preparation

for homemaking, so that his coöperation will be intelligent and

therefore helpful. He will know more than he does now about the cost

of living and he will assist in making a preliminary division of the

year's income upon an intelligent basis. He will recognize the

necessity for equipment for the homemaking business and will

contribute his share of thought and labor to improving the home plant.

He will be a companion as well as adviser to his boys and girls and

will retain their respect and love by his sympathetic understanding

and his remembrance of the boy's point of view. In all his dealings

with his children he will be careful that interference with his

comfort and convenience or the wounding of his pride by their

shortcomings does not obscure his sense of justice. He will be a

student of child nature and will keep in view the ultimate good and

usefulness of his child. He will regard his fatherhood as his greatest

service to the state.

[Illustration: Pals. The wise father will be companion as well as

adviser to his children]

The children reared by this ideal father and mother in their ideal

home will grow as naturally as plants in a well-cared-for garden. With

examples of courtesy and kindness, of cheerful work and

health-producing play, ever before them in the lives of their parents,

they may be led along the same paths to similar usefulness. Their

educational problems will be met by the combined effort of teachers

and parents, and natural aptitude as well as community needs will

dictate the choice of their life work.

That this ideal family is far removed from many families of our

acquaintance merely proves the necessity of training for more

efficient homemaking, and indeed for a better conception of homemaking

ideals and problems. If we are to teach our girls and our boys to be

homemakers, we must consider carefully what they need to know. If we

are to counteract the tendencies of the past two or three decades away

from homemaking as a vocation, we must show the true value of the

homemaker to the community, and the opportunities which domestic life

presents to the scientifically trained mind.

Education for homemaking necessarily implies teachers who are trained

for homemaking instruction; and we may pause here to notice that no

homemaking course in normal school or college can be sufficient to

give the teacher true knowledge of ideal homes. She must have seen

such homes, or those which approximate the ideal. Perhaps she has

grown up in such a home. More probably she has not. If not, it must

then necessarily follow that the lower have been the ideals in the

home where the teacher had her training, the more she should see of

other homes, and especially of good homes. Her whole outlook may be

changed by such contact; and with her outlook, her teaching; and with

her teaching, her influence.

If all girls grew up in ideal homes, it seems probable that homemaking

would appeal to them quite naturally as the ultimate vocation. Indeed,

we know that many girls feel this natural drawing, in spite of most

unlovely conditions in their childhood homes. The task of mother,

teacher, and vocational counselor (who may be either) in this matter

is a complicated one. Some girls are not fitted by nature to be

homemakers. Some may with careful training overcome inherent defects

which stand in the way of their success. Some have the natural

endowment, but have their eyes fixed on other careers. Some have

unhappy ideals to overcome. The fact, however, confronts us that at

some time in their lives a very large majority of these girls will be

homemakers. It is the part of those who have charge of them in their

formative years to do two things for them: first, to train them so

that they may understand the tasks of the homemaker and perform them

creditably if they are called upon; second, to teach all those girls

who seem fitted for this high vocation to desire it, and to choose it

for at least part of their mature lives.

CHAPTER III

ESTABLISHING A HOME

Certain very definite attempts are being made in these days to meet

the evident lack of homemaking knowledge in the rising generation. And

since definiteness of plan lends power to accomplishment, we cannot do

better than to analyze as carefully as possible the various lines of

knowledge required by the prospective homemaker in entering upon her

life work.

What are the problems of homemaking? And how far can we provide the

girl with the necessary equipment to make her an efficient worker in

her chosen vocation?

Country life and city life are apparently so far removed from each

other as to present totally different problems to the homemaker and to

the vocational educator of girls. And yet underlying the successful

management of both urban and rural homes are the same principles of

domestic economy and of social efficiency. The principles are there,

however widely their application may differ. While we may wisely train

country girls for country living, and city girls to face the problems

of urban life, we must not lose sight of the fact that country girls

often become homemakers in the city and that city girls are often

found establishing homes in the country. Nor should we overlook the

truth that some study of home conditions in other than familiar

surroundings will broaden the girl's knowledge and fit her in later

life to make conditions subservient to that knowledge.

Both rural and urban homemakers must be taught to appreciate their

advantages and to make the most of them. They must also learn to face

their disadvantages and to work intelligently toward overcoming them.

The country homemaker has no immediate need of studying the problems

of congestion in population which menace the millions of

city-dwellers. The country home has plenty of room and an abundance of

pure air. Yet it is often true that country homes are poorly

ventilated and that much avoidable sickness results from this fact.

The country home is often set in the midst of great natural beauty,

yet misses its opportunity to satisfy the eye in an artistic sense.

Its very isolation is sometimes a cause of the lack of attention to

its appearance to the passerby.

The farmer's wife has an advantage in the matter of fresh vegetables,

eggs, and poultry, but the city housekeeper has the near-by market and

finds the question of sanitation, the preservation of food, and the

disposal of waste far easier of solution.

The city housewife is often troubled in regard to the source of her

milk supply; the country-dweller has plenty of fresh milk, but

frequently finds it difficult to be sure of pure water.

The country homemaker often lacks the conveniences which make

housekeeping easier; the city woman is often misled, by the ease of

obtaining the ready-made article, into buying inferior products in

order to avoid the labor of producing.

The family in the farming community often has meager social life and

lack of proper recreations; the city-dweller is made restless and

improvident by an excess of opportunities for certain sorts of

amusement.

Thus each type of community has its own problems. But practically all

of these problems fall under certain general heads which both city and

country homemakers should consider as part of their education. The

present turning of thought toward training in these directions is most

promising for the homes of the future.

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

A country home which, though set in the midst of natural beauty, yet

fails to satisfy the eye in an artistic sense]

[Illustration: Courtesy of Mrs. Joseph E. Wing

In contrast to the illustration above, this home shows what a few

artistic touches may do to enhance the natural beauty of the

surroundings]

It is one of the misfortunes of existing conditions that the city and

the country are not better acquainted with each other. Scorn

frequently takes the place of understanding. The town or village girl

goes out to teach in the country school, knowing little of country

living and less of country homes. It is difficult, if not impossible,

for such a teacher to be an influence for good. Especially as she

approaches the homemaking problem is she without the knowledge which

must underlie successful work. It is important that the city girl

under such conditions should make a special effort to study country

life and country homes in a sympathetic, helpful spirit.

Perhaps our analysis of homemaking problems can take no more practical

form than to follow from its hypothetical beginning the making of an

actual home.

No more inspiring moment comes in the lives of most men and women than

that in which the first step is taken toward making their first home.

There is an instinctive recognition of the greatness of the occasion.

But ignorance will dull the glow of inspiration and wrong standards

will lead to wreck of highest hopes. Let us, therefore, be practical

and definite and face the facts.

A home is to be established. The first question is: Where? To a

certain extent circumstances must answer this question. The character

and place of employment of the breadwinner, the income, social

relations already established, school, church, library, market, water

and sanitary conditions, must all be considered. Yet even these

regulating conditions must receive intelligent treatment. How many

young homemakers have any definite idea as to what proportion of the

income may safely be expended for shelter? How many can tell the

relative advantages of renting and owning?

[Illustration: Copyright by Keystone View Co.

A tenement district. One of the greatest disadvantages in urban life

is the overcrowding in tenement houses]

Probably the first consideration in selection is likely to be whether

the home is to be permanent or merely temporary. When the occupation

is likely to be permanent, the greatest comfort and well-being will

usually result from establishing early a permanent home; and this

involves a long look ahead to justify the selection of a site. Not

only must health and convenience be considered, but future questions

relative to the expanding requirements of the homemakers and to the

education and proper upbringing of a family as well. Then, too, young

people must usually begin modestly from a financial standpoint, and

they are therefore cut off from certain locations which they may

perhaps desire and which they might hope to attain in later years. In

the country, where the livelihood is often gained directly from the

land, a new element enters into selection and must to some extent take

precedence over others. Soil considerations aside, however, we have

health, beauty, social environment, educational advantages, and

expense to consider; and we should establish certain standards in

these directions for our young people to measure by.

Considerations of health must include not only climatic conditions,

but questions of drainage, water supply, time and comfort of

transportation to work, and the sanitary condition of the

neighborhood.

Prospective homemakers must learn, too, the value of reposeful

surroundings and of some degree of natural beauty. They must recognize

the value also of desirable social environment--that is, of such moral

and intellectual surroundings as will be uplifting for the homemakers

and safe for the future family. They will, it is hoped, learn that a

merely fashionable neighborhood is not necessarily a desirable

environment. The church, the school, the library, and proper

recreation centers are also to be considered in one's social outlook.

They are all distinctly worth paying for, as also is a good road.

With the site selected, the great problem of building next confronts

the homemaker. Here again the principles of selection should be

sufficiently known to young people, boys and girls alike, to save them

from the mistakes so commonly made and frequently so regretted.

The people who can afford to employ an architect to design their homes

are in a decided minority, and the only way to insure good houses for

the less well-to-do majority is to see that the less well-to-do do not

grow up without instruction as to what good houses are. The great

tendency of the day in building is fortunately toward increased

simplicity and toward a quality which we may call "livableness." This

tendency we shall do well to fix in our teaching.

In general, the good house is plain, substantial, convenient, and

suited to its surroundings. Efficient housekeeping is largely

conditioned by such very practical details as closets and pantries,

the relative positions of sink and stove, the height of work tables

and shelves, the distance from range to dining table, the ease or

difficulty of cleaning woodwork, laundry facilities, and the like.

Housekeeping is made up of accumulated details of work, and adequate

preparation for comfort in working can be made only when the house is

in process of construction.

Not less are the higher and more abstract duties of the homemaker

served by the kind of house she lives and works in. In a hundred

details the homemaker should be able to increase the efficiency of the

"place to make citizens in." A common mistake in building produces a

house which adds to, rather than lessens, the burdens of its inmates.

More often than not this is the result of a misapprehension of what

houses are for.

There are many large mansions in our villages and cities built for

show and display of wealth in which no one will live today. These

houses are being torn down and sold for junk. The modern home is built

for one purpose only, a home.

We must therefore teach our boys and girls that houses are for

shelter, work, comfort, and rest, and to satisfy our sense of beauty,

not to serve as show places nor to establish for us a standing in the

community proportionate to the size of our buildings. We must teach

them to measure their house needs and to avoid the uselessly ornate as

well as the hopelessly ugly. We must teach them to consider ease of

upkeep a distinctly valuable factor in building. But most of all must

the homemaker be taught that the comfort and well-being of the family

come first in the making of plans.

Few persons possess sufficient originality to think out new and

valuable arrangements for houses; therefore we must see that their

minds are rendered alert to discover successful arrangements in the

houses they are constantly seeing and to adapt these arrangements to

their own needs. Unless their minds are awakened in this direction,

the majority will merely see the house problem in large units,

overlooking the finer points of detail which mean comfort or the

opposite.

I recall spending a considerable number of drawing periods in my

grammar-school days upon copying drawings of houses. I recall that we

became sufficiently conversant with such terms as front elevation,

side elevation, and floor plan to feel that we were deep in technical

knowledge. But I do not recall that anyone suggested any question as

to the suitability of these houses for homes, or opened our minds to

consideration of the fact that house building was a proper concern for

our minds. It was merely a case in which educative processes failed to

function. They do things better now in many schools. But we should not

rest until all of our prospective homemakers have opportunity to

obtain practical instruction in home planning and building.

Matters pertaining to heating, ventilating, and plumbing are easily

taught as resting upon certain definite, well-understood principles.

Here the personal element is less to be considered, and scientific

knowledge may be passed on with some degree of authority. Our courses

in physics, chemistry, and hygiene can be made thoroughly practical

without losing any of their scientific value. Especially in our rural

schools should matters of this sort receive careful and adequate

treatment. In times past it was considered inevitable that the

country-dweller should lack the advantages, found in most city houses,

of a plentiful supply of water, radiated heat for the whole house,

proper disposal of waste, and arrangements for cold storage. We know

now that these things are obtainable at less cost than we had

supposed; and we know also that it is not lack of means, but lack of

knowledge, which forces many to do without them. In many a farm home

the doctor's bills for one or two winters would pay for installing

proper systems of heat and ventilation. Everything that tends to

increase the comfort and safety of home life must be taught, as well

as everything that tends to lessen the labor of keeping a family

clean, warm, and properly fed.

Accurate figures should be obtained to set before the boys and girls

who will be homemakers, showing the cost, in time, labor, and money,

of running a heating plant for the house as compared with several

stoves scattered about in the dwelling. To accompany these we must

have more figures, showing the comparative time spent in doing the

necessary work incidental to the operation of each type of apparatus.

We must consider the comparative cleanliness of both types of heating

plants, with their effect, first, upon the health of the family, and

secondly, upon the amount of cleaning necessary to keep the house in

proper condition. We must compare types of stoves with one other,

hot-air, steam, and hot-water plants with one another, and various

kinds of fuels, both as to cost and as to efficacy.

The water question is one of real interest to both city-and

country-dweller, although the chances are that the country-dweller

knows less about his source of supply than the city-dweller can know

if he chooses to investigate. The city-dweller should know whence and

by what means the water flows from his faucet, if for no other reason

than that he may do his part in seeing that the money spent by his

city or town brings adequate return to the taxpayer. For the rural

homemaker, of course, the problem usually becomes an individual one.

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

A dangerous well. The rural homemaker must make sure that his water

supply is at a safe distance from contaminating impurities]

Is the water supply adequate? Is the water free from harmful bacteria?

Is the source a safe distance from contaminating impurities? Are we

obtaining the water for household and farm purposes without more labor

than is compatible with good management? Is not running water as

important for the house as for the barn? How much water does an

ordinary family need for all purposes in a day? How much time does it

take to pump and carry this quantity by hand or to draw it from a

well? How much strength and nerve force are thus expended that might

be saved for more important work? Does lack of time or strength cause

the homekeeper to "get along" with less water in the house than is

really needed? Is there any natural means at hand for pumping the

water--any "brook that may be put to work," any gravity system that

may be installed? If not, are there mechanical means available that

would really pay for themselves in increased water, time, and comfort

for all the family?

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

Where water must be pumped and carried by hand much strength and

nerve force are expended which might be kept for more important work]

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

A "brook put to work" may be utilized in supplying water to a

farmhouse]

From a consideration of water supply we pass naturally to questions of

the disposal of waste, and here again is found a subject too often

neglected both in town and in rural communities. In the city the

problems are not individual ones in the main, but rather questions of

the best management and use of the public utilities concerned. Does

the average city householder know what becomes of the waste removed

from his door by the convenient arrival of the ash man, the garbage

man, the rubbish man? Does he know whether this waste is disposed of

in the most sanitary way? Does he consider whether it is removed in

such a way as to be inoffensive and without danger to the people

through whose streets it is carried? Does he know anything of the cost

to the city of waste disposal? Is it merely an expense, and a heavy

one, for him in common with other taxpayers to bear? Or is the

business made to pay for itself? If not, is it possible to make it

pay? Does any community make the waste account balance itself at the

end of the year?

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

An objectionable garbage wagon. Disposal of waste is a subject too

often neglected both in urban and in rural communities]

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

This new covered garbage wagon subjects the public to no danger]

In the country, once more we face the individual problem rather than

that of the community. Here proper provision for the disposal of waste

often necessitates more knowledge of the subject than is possessed by

the homemaker, or sometimes it requires the installation of apparatus

whose cost seems prohibitive. A careful consideration of these matters

will possibly disclose the fact that a smaller expenditure may

accomplish the desired purpose. Or, if this is not true, it may be

found that the end accomplished is worth the expenditure of what

seemed a prohibitive sum. A water closet, for instance, has not only a

sanitary but a moral value. We must somehow educate people to

understand and to believe that the basis of family health and

usefulness is proper living conditions, and that some system of sewage

and garbage disposal is a necessary step toward proper living

conditions. With the urban population these matters are removed from

personal and immediate consideration, but every rural homemaker must

face his own problems, with the knowledge that since his conditions

are individual his solution must be equally his own.

In the matters pertaining to decoration within the house as well as

beautifying its surroundings, the country-and the city-dweller meet on

equal terms. Their problems may differ in detail, but the principles

to be studied are the same. Here our art courses must be made to

contribute their share to the homemaker's training. We must strike the

keynote of simplicity, both within and without, and must teach girls

especially the value of carefully thought-out color schemes and

decorating plans, to be carried out by different people in the

materials and workmanship suited to their purses. They must learn that

expense is not necessarily a synonym for beauty; they must know the

characteristics of fabrics and other decorative materials; and they

must be trained to recognize the qualities for which expenditure of

money and effort are worth while.

In the designing of school buildings nowadays close attention is paid

to beauty of architecture, symmetry of form, convenience of

arrangement, and durable but artistic furnishings. All unwittingly the

child receives an aesthetic training through his daily life in the

midst of attractive surroundings.

Many of our rural schools are doing excellent work in teaching

children to beautify the school grounds. Some, of them go farther and

interest their pupils in attacking the problem of improving outside

conditions at home. Every child whose mind is thus turned in the

direction of attractive home grounds has unconsciously taken a step

toward one branch of efficient homemaking. If it were possible to give

pupils the foundation principles of landscape gardening, they might

learn to see with a trained eye the problems they will otherwise

attack blindly.

[Illustration: An example of the newer architecture. An artistic

approach to a school has a daily effect on the mind of the child]

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

Rural school with flower bed. Many of the rural schools are doing

excellent work in teaching children to beautify the school grounds]

With the house built and ready for its furniture, the selection of the

latter becomes both part of the scheme of decoration and part also of

the domestic plans for securing comfort and inspiring surroundings.

The same principles of beauty and utility, restfulness, comfort, and

suitability, are called into requisition. The trained housewife will

have an eye toward future dusting and will choose the less ornate

articles. The same person, in her capacity as the mother of citizens,

will see that chairs are comfortable to sit in, that tables and desks

are the right height for work, that book cases and cabinets are

sufficient in number and size to take care of the family treasures.

She will use pictures sparingly and choose them to inspire. Perhaps,

most of all, the woman with the trained mind will know how to avoid a

superfluity of furniture in her rooms. She will be educated to the

beauty of well-planned spaces and will not feel obliged to fill every

nook and corner with chairs or tables or sofas or other pieces of

furniture which merely "fill the space."

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

An artistic living room. The principles of beauty and utility,

restfulness, comfort, and suitability, must all be considered in the

furnishing of a home]

Before furnishing is considered complete, the housekeeper must take

into account the matter of operating apparatus. Perhaps a large part

of this important department of house equipment has been built into

the house. The water system, the sewer connection or its substitute,

and the lighting apparatus are already installed, so that the turn of

a switch or a faucet, the pull of a chain, sets one or all to work for

us. We are now to consider whether we shall buy a vacuum cleaner or a

broom and dustpan; a washing machine and electric flatiron or the

services of a washerwoman, or shall telephone the laundry to call for

the wash. Shall we invest in a "home steam-canning outfit" at ten

dollars, or make up a list for the retailer of the products of the

canning factory? Shall we have a sewing machine, or plan to buy our

clothing from "the store"?

Once upon a time practically the only labor-saving device possible to

the housekeeping woman was another woman. To-day many devices are

offered to take her place. Our homemaker must know about them, and

must compare their value with the older piece of operating machinery,

the domestic servant. She must know what it costs to keep a servant,

in money, in responsibility, and in all the various ways which cannot

be reduced to figures.

Already the pros and cons of the "servant question" have caused much

and long-continued agitation. The woman of the future should be taught

to approach the matter with a scientific summing up of the facts and

with a readiness to lift domestic service to a standardized vocation

or to abandon it altogether in favor of the "labor-saving devices" and

the "public utilities." Certain of our home-efficiency experts assure

us that all "industries in the home are doomed." If this is true, the

domestic servant must of necessity cease to exist. Most persons,

however, cannot yet see how "public utilities" will be able to do all

of our work. We may send the washing out, but we cannot send out the

beds to be made, the eggs to be boiled, or the pictures, chairs, and

window sills to be dusted. The table must be set at home, and the

dishes washed there, until we approach the day of communal eating

places, which, as we all know, will be difficult to utilize for

infants and the aged, for invalids, and for the vast army of those who

are averse to faring forth three times daily in search of food. For a

long time yet the domestic servant, _or her substitute_, will be with

us, doing the work that even so great a power as "public utilities"

cannot remove from the home.

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

Contrast the bad taste displayed in the furnishing of this hopelessly

inartistic room with the simplicity shown in that on page 43]

At present there is much to indicate that the servant's substitute, in

the form of various labor-saving devices, will eventually fill the

place of the already vanishing domestic worker. Whether this proves to

be the case will rest largely with these girls whom we are educating

to-day. The pendulum is swinging rather wildly now, but by their day

of deciding things it may have settled down to a steady motion so that

their push will send it definitely in one direction or the other.

There is no inherent reason why making cake should be a less honorable

occupation than making underwear or shoes; why a well-kept kitchen

should be a less desirable workroom than a crowded, noisy factory. But

under existing conditions the comparison from the point of view of the

worker is largely in favor of the factory. Among the facts to be faced

by the homemaker who wishes to intercept the flight of the housemaid

and the cook are these:

1. Hours for the domestic worker must be definite, as they are in

shop or factory work.

2. The working day must be shortened.

3. Time outside of working hours must be absolutely the worker's

own.

4. The worker must either live outside the home in which she

works, or must have privacy, convenience, comfort, and the

opportunity to receive her friends, as she would at home.

In short, the houseworker must have definite work, definite hours, and

outside these must be free to live her own life, in her own way, and

among her own friends, as the factory girl lives hers when her day's

work is done.

That women are already awaking to these responsibilities is shown by

the increasing number who choose the labor-saving devices in place of

the flesh-and-blood machine. Many of these women will tell you that

they make this choice to avoid the personal responsibility involved

in having a resident worker in the house. There _is_ comfort in not

having to consider "whether or not the vacuum cleaner likes to live in

the country," or the bread mixer "has a backache," or the electric

flatiron desires "an afternoon off to visit its aunt." It is the same

satisfaction we feel in urging the automobile to greater speed

regardless of the melting heat, the pouring rain, or the number of

miles it has already traveled to-day. Perhaps the future will see

machines for household work so improved and multiplied that we can

escape altogether this perplexing personal problem of "the woman who

works for us."

Whether or not we escape this problem when we patronize the laundry,

the bakeshop, the underwear factory, is a matter for further thought.

To many it seems a simpler matter to face the problem of one cook, one

laundress, than to investigate conditions in factory, bakery, and

laundry, to agitate, to "use our influence," to urge legislation, to

follow up inspectors and their reports, to boycott the bakery, to be

driven into the establishment of a coöperative laundry whether we will

or no, in order to fulfill our obligations to the "women who work for

us" in these various places. True, our duty to womankind requires that

we do all these things to a certain extent so long as the public

utilities exist, but with the multiplication of utilities to a number

sufficient to do a large portion of our work, it would seem that women

would be left little time for anything else than their supervision and

regulation.

Problems relating to the establishing of a home would once have been

considered far from the province of the teacher in the public school.

Formerly we taught our children a little of everything except how to

live. Now we are realizing that the teacher should be a constructive

social force. Living is a more complicated thing than it once was, and

the school must do its share in fitting the children for their task.

All these matters we have been considering--the selection of a home

site, building, decorating, furnishing, sanitation, and all the

rest--represent constructive social work the teacher may do, which, if

she passes it by, may not be done at all. College courses should

prepare the teacher for such work, but even the girl who is not

college-trained will find, if she seeks it, help sufficient for her

training. And the work awaits her on every hand.

CHAPTER IV

RUNNING THE DOMESTIC MACHINERY

With a home established, the problems confronting the homemaker become

those of administration. The "place for making citizens" is built and

ready. The making of citizens must begin.

One of the fundamental requisites for the efficient operation of the

home plant is that the homemaker shall have a firm grasp upon the

financial part of the business. To estimate the number of homes

wrecked every year by lack of this economic knowledge is of course

impossible; but you can call up without effort many cases in which

this lack was at least a contributing element to the wreck.

Keeping expenditures within the income is only the _ABC_ of the

financial knowledge required, although, like other _ABC_'s, it is

essential to the acquirement of deeper knowledge. It is not enough

that the housekeeper merely succeeds in keeping out of debt. She must

know what to expect in return for the money that she spends, and she

must know whether or not she gets it. She must have definitely in mind

the results she expects, and she must know why she spends for certain

objects rather than for others.

In the days of famine and fear, the individual was fortunate who had

food, shelter, and a skin to wrap about his shivering shoulders. In

these days it is not enough to have merely these things. Certain

standards of civilized life must be met, and we shall find that it

requires judgment and skill to apportion our funds properly.

The common needs of civilized mankind are usually roughly classified

as follows: food; shelter; clothing; operating expenses, including

service, heat, light, water, repairs, refurnishing, and the general

upkeep of the plant; advancement, including education, recreation,

travel, charity, church, doctor, dentist, savings.

The exact proportion of any income devoted to each of these is of

course a matter conditioned by the needs of the particular family as

well as by its tastes and desires. Figures are obtainable which throw

light upon proportions found advisable in what are considered typical

cases. We may learn the minimum amount of money which will feed a man

in New York or in various other cities and towns. We may find

estimates as to the prices of a "decent living" in various parts of

the country. Home-economics experts will furnish us with figures which

may be used as a basis for apportioning this amount among departments

of household expenses. That the figures offered by these experts

differ more or less widely need not disturb us. It is perhaps too

early in such work for final authoritative estimates.

The following apportionment is taken from Chapin's _The Standard of

Living among Workingmen's Families in New York City_ and has to do

with the minimum income required for normal living for a family of

father, mother, and three children on Manhattan Island:

Food $359.00

Housing 168.00

Fuel and light 41.00

Clothing 113.00

Carfare 16.00

Health 22.00

Insurance 18.00

Sundry items 74.00

-------

$811.00

"Families having from $900 to $1,000 a year," concludes Dr. Chapin,

"are able, in general, to get food enough to keep body and soul

together, and clothing and shelter enough to meet the most urgent

demands of decency." Regarding incomes below $900, he says, "Whether

an income between $800 and $900 can be made to suffice is a question

to which our data do not warrant a dogmatic answer."

The two apportionments given below have been made by the federal

government and concern the maintenance of a normal standard in two

industrial sections of the country. In each case the family is assumed

to be, as in Dr. Chapin's estimate,[1] made up of father, mother, and

three children.

Fall River, Georgia and

Mass. North Carolina

Food $312.00 $286.67

Housing 132.00 44.81

Clothing 136.80 113.00

Fuel and light 42.75 49.16

Health 11.65 16.40

Insurance 18.40 18.20

Sundry items 78.00 72.60

------- -------

$731.90 $600.74

These estimates do no more than suggest the minimum upon which the

various items of living expense can be met and the proportion to each

account. People who can do more upon their incomes than merely live

must look farther for help.

Mrs. Bruère in her _Increasing Home Efficiency_ offers the following

as a minimum schedule[3] for efficient living:

Food $ 344.93

Shelter 144.00

Clothing 100.00

Operation 150.00

Advancement 312.00

Incidentals 46.85

-------

$1,097.78

"When the income is over $1,200," Mrs. Bruère adds, "the family has

passed the line of mere decency in living and entered the realm of

choice. Their budget need not show how the entire income _must_ be

spent, but how it may be spent to gain whatever special end the family

has in view."

That any estimated schedule for any income will fit exactly the needs

of any family of father, mother, and three children in any given town

in the United States no one supposes, but it is at least a basis upon

which to work. And perhaps the main point from an educational

standpoint is that it is a schedule at all.

The happy-go-lucky, spend-as-you-go style of housekeeping does not

constitute efficiency. The homemaking expert we are training will have

a better plan. She will have been long familiar with the idea of

apportioning incomes. She will have applied the tests of efficient

decision to her personal income before she has to attack the problem

of spending for a family. The ideal homemaker of the future will be a

woman who has had a personal income, and preferably one that she has

earned herself and learned how to spend before she enters upon

matrimony and motherhood.

By the less scientific plan of merely recording what one has spent,

when the spending is over, it is more than likely that some

departments of home expenditure will gain at the expense of others. If

we can afford only $150 for rent, and we pay $200, it is evident that

we must go without some portion of the food or clothing or advancement

that we need. If we dress extravagantly, we must pay for our

extravagance by sacrificing efficient living in some other direction.

The budget is not entirely or even in large measure for the sake of

saving, but rather for the sake of spending wisely. When women become

as businesslike in the administration of home finances as they must be

to succeed in business life, or as men usually are in their business

relations, home administration will be placed upon a secure financial

footing and will gain immeasurably in dignity thereby.

Feeding and clothing a family are perhaps the fundamentals of the

homemaker's daily tasks. And upon neither of them will the application

of scientific principles be wasted. It is not enough that we merely

set food before our families in sufficient quantity to appease the

clamoring appetite. Children and adults may suffer from malnutrition

even though their consumption of food is normal in quantity three

times a day. No housewife is properly fitted for her task unless she

has some knowledge of dietetics.

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

Teaching housewives food values. No housewife in these days need lack

the knowledge of dietetics which will fit her for her task]

Many a notable housewife who has perhaps never even heard of dietetics

has nevertheless a practical working knowledge of some or many of its

principles. There are traditions among housewives that we should serve

certain foods at the same meal or should cook certain foods together.

Often these time-honored combinations rest upon the soundest of

dietetic principles. On the other hand, many cooks feed their families

by a hit-or-miss method which as often as not violates all the laws of

scientific feeding, and which farmers long ago discarded in the

feeding of their cows.

[Illustration: Blackburn College students preparing dinner.

Fortunately girls may study dietetics in the school that teaches them

the law of gravity and the rules for forming French plurals]

Fortunately the girl who so desires may now learn something of these

feeding laws in the same school that teaches her the law of

gravitation or the rules for forming French plurals. Fortunately,

also, the girls of to-day seem inclined to undertake such study. It is

not too much to expect that the girl of the future will be able to set

before her family meals scientifically planned or food wisely and

economically purchased, well cooked, and attractively served. Nor is

it too much to expect that teachers will be able to do these things

and to instruct others how to do them. That this ideal requires

considerable and varied knowledge is clear at the outset. The serving

of a single meal involves: (1) knowledge of food values, (2) skill in

making a "balanced ration," (3) knowledge of market conditions, (4)

skill in buying, with special reference to personal tastes and

financial conditions, (5) knowledge of the chemistry of cooking, (6)

skill in applying chemical knowledge, (7) skill in adapting knowledge

of cooking to existing conditions, (8) knowledge of serving a meal and

practice in service.

The fact that a large proportion of deaths is directly due to

digestive troubles is certainly food for thought. Such a statement

alone would warrant action of some sort looking toward increased

knowledge of food values and food preparation. It is not necessarily

because people live upon homemade food that their digestions are

impaired, as we so often hear stated nowadays, but because we have

taken it for granted that, given a stove, a saucepan, and a spoon, any

woman could instinctively combine flour, water, and yeast into food.

There is little dependence upon instinct in producing the bread of

commerce. Bakers' bread is scientifically made, no doubt; but there is

no reason why the homemade article may not also be a product of

science. And there will always be this difference between the baker

and the housewife: the baker's profit must be expressed in dollars and

cents, while that of the housewife will be represented in increased

force and efficiency in the family that she feeds. With such differing

ends in view, the processes and results of each must continue to

differ as widely as we know they do at present.

It is now some years since Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote of woman's

work:

Six hours a day the woman spends on food,

Six mortal hours!

* * * * *

Till the slow finger of heredity

Writes on the forehead of each living man,

Strive as he may: "His mother was a cook!"

[Illustration: A Blackburn College student mixing bread. There is no

reason why homemade bread may not be the product of science]

Many women now doubtless spend less time on cooking than when Mrs.

Gilman wrote; perhaps her scorn has borne fruit. But the implication

that being a cook is unworthy loses all its force unless it can be

shown that "his mother was _nothing but_ a cook." Even so, there are

worse things one might be. It is true that women should not spend six

hours out of the working day on merely one department of their

household work. Yet the ill-fed family is out of the race for a place

among the efficient. Let us then teach the coming woman to use less

time, more science, and all the labor-savers there are available, and

still accomplish the same, or perhaps better, results.

That the question of clothing is equally fundamental, perhaps few of

us will acknowledge. Yet we must not underrate its importance. Food

furnishes the fuel with which to support the fires of life. Clothes,

however, contribute not only to comfort and health, but to mental

well-being and self-respect. So long as we mingle with our fellow men

in civilized communities, raiment will continue to require "taking

thought." That much of the feminine part of the population devotes an

undue amount of thought to certain aspects of the clothing question we

cannot deny. It is equally certain that many women, if not most women,

devote too little thought to other phases of the problem.

Present conditions seem to indicate that the average woman, of any

class of society, places the "prevailing mode" first in her personal

clothing problems. How to be "in style" absorbs much attention and

time. Surely it is overshadowing other very important considerations

relating to dress. When American women have awakened to the real

importance of these considerations, we shall observe a better

proportion in studying the clothes question.

As a scientific foundation upon which to build her practical knowledge

of how to clothe herself and her family, the girl of the future must

be trained to an understanding of (1) the hygiene of clothes, (2) art

expressed in clothes, (3) the psychology of clothes, (4) ethics as

affected by clothes, (5) personality as expressed by clothes.

There is no stage of life in which hygiene, art, psychology, and

ethics do not apply to clothes. The practical knowledge built upon

these as a foundation will guide the girl in choosing clothes which

are suitable to the occasion for which they are designed, are not

extravagant in either price or style, give good value for the money

expended, express the individuality of the wearer, and exert an

influence uplifting rather than the reverse upon the community at

large.

[Illustration: Class in dressmaking at Blackburn College. With women

scientifically trained in the matter of clothing, we shall do away

with much of the absurdity of dress]

With such a girl, the fact that "they" are wearing this or that will

be always a minor consideration. With women trained in matters of

clothing, we shall no longer be confronted by the absurdity of

identical styles for thick and thin, short and tall, middle-aged and

young, rich and poor. We shall no longer see dress dominating, as it

does to-day, the entire lives of thousands of women. From the woman of

wealth who spends a fortune every season upon her wardrobe, all the

way down the money scale to the young girl who strains every nerve and

spends every cent she can earn to buy and wear "the latest style,"

slavery to fashion is an evil gigantic in its proportions and

far-reaching in its results.

We have no right to interfere with the woman's instinct to make

herself beautiful. Rather we should encourage it, and should carefully

instruct her in her impressionable years as to what real beauty is. It

is almost safe to say that at present the principle by which the

modern woman is guided in deciding the great questions of feminine

attire is imitation. Incidentally, we may remark that nobody profits

by such a mistaken foundation except the manufacturer, who moves the

women of the world about like pawns on a chessboard merely to benefit

his business. The society woman brings the latest thing "from Paris."

The large New York establishments sell to their patrons copies of

"Paris models." The middle-class shops and the middle-class women copy

the copies. The cheap shops and the poor women copy the copy of the

copy. Every copy is made of less worthy material than its model, of

gaudier colors, with cheaper trimmings, until we have the pitiful

spectacle of girls who earn barely enough to keep body and soul

together spending their money for garments neither suitable nor

durable--sleazy, shabby after a single wearing, short-lived--yet for a

few ephemeral minutes "up to date."

How far this heartbreaking habit of imitation extends in the poor

girl's life we can hardly say. She marries, and buys furniture,

crockery, and lace curtains cheap and unsuitable, like her clothes,

always imitations and soon gone, to be superseded by more of the same

sort. What thoughtful woman desires to feel herself part of an

influence which leads to so much that is insincere, uneconomical,

wasteful both of raw material and of the infinitely more important

material which makes women's souls? What teacher of young girls has a

right to hold back from setting her hand against the formation of

habits so undesirable?

And what of the vast output of the factories which turn out cheap

cloth, cheaper trimmings, imitations of silk, imitations of velvet,

ribbons which will scarcely survive one tying, shoes with pasteboard

soles, and all the other intrinsically worthless products which now

find ready sale? When women have been educated to a standard of taste,

of suitability, of quality, which will forbid the use of cheap

imitations of elegant and costly articles, will not the world gain in

bringing such factories to the making of products of real worth

instead of their present output?

The mother of the future will bring to bear upon the clothing question

not only more knowledge, but more serious thought, than she does

to-day. For the children she must provide comfortable, serviceable

play clothes in generous quantity, that they may pursue their

development unhampered in either body or mind. She must know the

hygiene of childhood and the psychology of children's clothes. For the

growing girls there must be a proper recognition of the growing

interest in adornment, avoiding the Scylla of vanity on one hand and

the Charybdis of unhappy consciousness of being "different from the

other girls" on the other. For the sons there must be careful

provision for the athletic life so dear to the boy, together with due

recognition of the approaching dignities of manhood, with special care

for the small details which mark the well-groomed man.

As in the matter of the food supply, there must be knowledge of

markets and skill in buying. And, as in that case, there should be

knowledge of the process of transforming materials into the finished

product. Processes involving a great degree of technical skill, such

as the tailor's art, the average woman will not attempt; but the

simpler forms of garment making present no special difficulty to

those who wish to try them or who find it expedient to do so.

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

Buying clothing ready made. The question of buying clothing ready

made or of making it will find individual solution according to means,

inclination, and ability]

A wholesale assumption that it is only a question of a short time

before all garment making will be done in the factory is probably

without warrant. We read again and again of late, "The day of buying

instead of making _is here_! We may like it or not like it, but the

fact remains, _it is here_!" And then we look all about us, and find

that the day is apparently not here for at least several thousands of

people of whom we have personal knowledge. That discovery gives us

courage to look farther. We find paper-pattern companies flourishing;

dress goods selling in the retail departments as they have always

sold; seamstresses fully occupied; and we conclude that for some time

yet the question of buying or making will find individual solution,

according to means, inclination, and ability. What we wish to guard

against in the upbringing of our future mothers is the necessity of

buying because of a lack of the ability to make. The woman trained to

a knowledge of the making of garments is the only woman who can

intelligently decide the question for her own household. The others

are forced to a decision by their own limitations.

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

In a community preserving kitchen questions of food supply may

sometimes be solved and community interests unified]

Passing from the elemental needs, shelter, warmth, food, and clothing,

we enter upon the most complex of woman's duties--adjustment of her

home to community conditions and provision for her family's share in

community life. That these more abstract problems frequently overlap

the concrete ones already enumerated need not be said. It is

impossible, even if we so desire, to live "to ourselves alone." We

shall undoubtedly stand for something in the community, whether

consciously or otherwise. If it were given us to know the extent of

our influence, we should probably be appalled at the crossing and

recrossing of the lines emanating from our daily lives.

In some households there are definite aims in the direction of

community life. These differ widely. In many the question seems to be

entirely, "What can I get from the community?" in some, "What can I

give?" in a few, "What can I share?" Of the three, the last is without

doubt the one which contributes most to community well-being.

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

A community Christmas tree. Even the younger children may be given

the opportunity to take part in community work]

The ordinary family of necessity touches community life at one time or

another at certain well-defined points. The efficient homemaker must

therefore make intelligent provision for these points of contact with

the community.

Church and charity organizations have always been recognized in

American life as community matters and have provided community meeting

places and community work. Through them, especially in earlier days,

women often found their only common activities. The school furnished

the same common ground for the children. In the present time of

multiplied activity these organizations still stand in the foreground.

In them, both young and old find perhaps their best opportunity for

"team work."

A parish in which all pull together is perhaps as rare as a school in

which every child truly desires to learn. Yet neither is beyond the

possibilities. To keep each family in a proper attitude toward these

community institutions is part of the homemaker's work--and a delicate

task it often is. It is not enough for a mother to adopt a cast-iron

policy of indiscriminate approval of pastor or teacher, although that

is often recommended. Do you remember your resentment as a child of

the inflexible judgment "The teacher _must_ be right"? Really there is

no "must" about it, and the child knows that as well as we. The

mother, therefore, who is able to review the matter in dispute calmly,

justly, and withal sympathetically, and who indorses the teacher's

action after such review, is a better conserver of the public peace

than the prejudging mother.

Or suppose she fails to indorse the teacher's course. We have always

been led to expect that this failure ruins forever the teacher's

influence with the child. There are some of us, however, who doubt the

immediate destruction of a wise influence, even if we should say, "No,

I do not think I should have punished you in just that way. But

perhaps you have not told me all that occurred. Or perhaps you

overlook the fact that you had annoyed Miss ---- until, being human

like the rest of us, she lost her temper. Is it fair for you to treat

your teacher in such a way that you cause her to lose her

self-control?" It is usually possible for the wise mother to turn her

fire upon the child's own error without outraging the childish sense

of justice by indorsing something which does not really deserve

indorsement.

There is, perhaps, no way in which the mother of a family can do so

much for the community institutions as by keeping up her own interest

in them and thus stimulating the other members of the family to a

willingness to do their part in the work of uplift. Where everybody is

really interested and working, the first great stumbling block in the

way of public enterprises has already been surmounted.

In the case of the school, however, the well-trained mother will find

additional work to do. We who have been teachers know how vainly we

have sought for intimate acquaintance on the part of parents with the

school. And we who have been mothers know something of the

difficulties in the way of gaining such intimate acquaintance. In

spite of, or perhaps because of, my long years of schoolroom

experience, I am quite unable to conquer my reluctance to knock at a

classroom door. There is an aloofness about being a school visitor

which most mothers feel and few enjoy. However, it is possible to gain

so much of sympathetic understanding by persistent visiting that I

have found it worth while to disregard my reluctance.

So often we hear mothers say, "I try to visit school at least once

each year." I wonder if they ever think of that one visit as an

injustice to the teacher? Suppose that, as is quite probable, the

visitor arrives at an inopportune moment, finding the children in the

midst of work which won't "show off," or the air heavy with the

echoes of a disciplinary encounter, or the children restless as the

session draws to a close, or dull and listless from the heat of an

unusually hot day. What the visitor needs to do is not to visit once a

year, but to get acquainted with the school as she does with her

next-door neighbor or her mother-in-law. Having done this, she may

attend the meetings of the parent-teacher association with a

consciousness of knowing something of the problems to be met and

solved. Until she has formed such acquaintance she deals with unknown

quantities and is therefore in danger of erroneous conclusions.

[Illustration: Mothers visiting a school garden. Mothers need to

visit the schools often in order to know something of the problems to

be met and solved by the teachers]

It is interesting to see how completely both teacher and pupils take

to their hearts the mother who really does get acquainted them. How

easy it is to appeal to her for advice and help; and what a sense of

familiar ownership she comes to have in the school. It is no longer

merely "what my child is learning" or whether "my children are getting

what they ought to get in school," but rather "what _we_ are doing in

our school."

The activities of women in the church usually follow along well-worn

paths. The women help as they have always helped by their attendance

at service, by their ladies' aid society or guild, by their missionary

society, and by their aid to the poor of the town. Many struggling

churches depend almost solely upon their women's work for support.

That the woman whose problems we are studying should enter upon her

church duties armed with wisdom is quite as necessary as that she

should be earnest and enthusiastic. The church is not primarily a

neighborhood social center. It is first of all a means for spiritual

uplift. It must not, in a multiplicity of humanitarian activities,

lose its character of spiritual guide. Its women will therefore be

animated by a spiritual conception of the church and will base their

activities in church work upon such a conception. The church built

upon such a foundation will be foremost among local forces devoted to

community service and will be a true force in the individual lives of

its people. The women of the church need to use the church as an

effective instrument for community betterment--not merely material

welfare, but actual increase in spiritual worth. Perfunctory church

attendance has little part in such a program. It calls rather for

intelligent understanding of church problems and an application of

spiritual ideals to everyday life.

Outside the organizations common to all communities the homekeeper

finds that she must keep in touch with her particular neighborhood

through its social life. It is here that her children are growing up,

here that they find their friends, here that they give and take

knowledge of themselves, of people, of ways to enjoy life and to meet

its problems. Here perhaps they will find their life mates and will

start out to be homemakers themselves. The mother of a family must

know her community thoroughly. She must do her share toward making it

a safe place and a pleasant place in which her children and other

children may grow up, and in which she and her husband, other women

and their husbands, may spend their lives. The mother who knows her

children's friends, who makes them welcome at her house, who "gets

acquainted" with their qualities good and bad, who is a "big sister"

to them all, will not find herself shut out from her children's social

life. If all the mothers were "big sisters" and all the fathers were

"big brothers," neighborhood society would be a safer thing than it

sometimes is.

Nor should all the social life center about the young people. The

woman's club, the village improvement society, the men's civic league,

all have their places. Club life will menace neither the man nor the

woman whose first interest is the home; and every man and woman needs

the stimulus of contact with other minds.

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

A road in DeKalb, Illinois, before improvements were made. Through

the agency of improvement societies, homemakers may often bring about

community reforms]

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.

The same road after repairs were made through the efforts of members

of the community]

Sometimes it will happen that the homemaker finds work to be done in

the line of community reform. Perhaps the roads are out of repair, or

the cemetery is neglected, or the school building insanitary. Perhaps

the water supply is not properly guarded, or milk inspection not

thoroughly looked after. Perhaps industrial conditions in the town are

not what they should be. Perhaps laws are not being enforced. New

conditions require new laws. There may be loafing places on streets

and in stores which are dangerous. The billiard halls may need a

thorough moral cleaning and a moral man placed in charge. The public

dance halls may need proper chaperonage. The moving pictures need

state and national censorship to eliminate the careless suggestions

leading toward both vice and crime. The homemaker must know under such

circumstances how to stir public opinion, how to make use of her

existing organizations, how to set on foot the various movements

necessary for reform.

In connection with the subject of the homemaker's place in the

community we must return to the thought of woman as the buyer for the

home and of her consequent influence upon the economic standards of

the community. It is not unusual in these days to read or hear such

statements as the following: "The woman was no longer producer and

consumer.... She became the consumer and her entire economic function

changed.... The housewife is the buying agent for the home." Like many

statements in regard to woman and her function, this seems overdrawn,

since woman in her capacity as homemaker is still a producer as well

as a consumer in thousands of cases. That she will become,

economically, _merely_ a buying agent, some of us not only doubt, but

should consider a certain misfortune, should it occur. The fact

remains, however, that as buyer of both raw materials and finished

products the woman spends a very large percentage (some say

nine-tenths) of the money taken in by the retail merchants of the

country. This gives, or should give her, a commanding position in the

producing world. If the women of America should definitely decide

to-day that they would buy no more corn flakes, or mercerized crochet

cotton, or silk elastic, the factories now so busy turning out these

products would be shut down to-morrow until they could be converted to

other uses. Women often fail to realize their power in this

direction. When they do realize it, they are able to accomplish

quietly all sorts of reforms in the mercantile and industrial worlds.

There need be no crusade against adulterated foods other than real

education and the refusal of homemakers to buy from merchants who

carry them in stock. The same remedy will apply to overworked and

underpaid workers, to insanitary shops and factories. That it is the

woman's duty to control these matters is a necessary conclusion when

we consider her power as the "spender of the family income." Who else

has this power as she has it?

We have already noted how this power might be used to regulate not

only the quality but the character of products in the factories. If

women merely passed by the outlandish hats, the high heels, the hobble

skirts, of fashion, their stay would necessarily be short. The woman,

therefore, _if she choose_, is absolutely the controller of production

along most lines of food and raiment. That she shall use this

controlling power wisely is one of her obligations. And to meet the

obligation she must be wisely trained.

It would seem that the homemaker, as we have conceived her, has a part

in most of the concerns of the community. We speak of "woman and

citizenship." To many this means, perhaps, "woman and suffrage." Woman

in politics is already an accomplished fact in fourteen western

states. Suffrage has been granted her in the state of New York. That

her political influence will widen seems a foregone conclusion. She

must therefore be prepared for real service in civic concerns. Women

have already applied their housecleaning knowledge and skill to the

smaller near-by problems of civic life. As time goes on they must

render the same service to state and nation.

We shall soon see nation-wide "votes for women," in our own country,

at least. But whether we do or not, or until we do, woman and

citizenship are, as they have always been, closely linked together. In

every community relation the homemaker is the good, or indifferent, or

bad citizen; and in every home relation she is the citizen still, and,

more than that, the mother of future citizens.

In spite of the "uneasy women" who feel that the home offers

insufficient scope for their intellectual powers, the executive

ability required to run a home smoothly and well is of no mean order.

"This being a mother is a complicated business," as one mother of my

acquaintance expresses it. Can we afford to have homemaking underrated

as a vocation, to be avoided or entered into lightly, often with

neither natural aptitude nor training to serve as guide to the

"complications"? It would seem not. We must then consider "guidance

toward homemaking" as a necessary part of a girl's education and as a

possible solution of the home problems on every hand.

We have thus far in this book concerned ourselves with making plain

our ideal of girlhood and womanhood and with considering the problems

which our girl and woman, when we have done our best to prepare her,

will have to meet. We have thus far not concerned ourselves with the

questions of how, when, and where the work of preparation is to be

done. A clear vision of the end to be attained, not obscured by

thought of the means used in reaching it, seems a necessity. From this

we may pass on to careful, detailed consideration of agencies and

methods. Knowing what we desire our girls to be, we may enlist all the

forces which react upon girls to make them into what we desire.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: No studies of present-day conditions are available. The

proportion spent for food, clothing, etc., will remain nearly the

same. It is safe to multiply the above estimates by two to obtain the

actual cost of living in the year 1919.]

PART II

GUIDING GIRLS TOWARD THE IDEAL

"A vocational guide is one who helps other people to find

themselves. Vocational guidance is the science of this

self-discovery."