THE HOME AND THE SCHOOL
One must not displace the other, for one cannot replace the other, but
rather the home and the school must react on each other. The home is
the place in which to gain the experience, and the school the place in
which to acquire the knowledge that shall illuminate and crystallize
the experience. The child should go out to the school with enthusiasm,
and return to the home filled with a deeper interest and desire to
realize things.
In morals and manners the school can only give tendency or direction
to the child's life. The school is not the best place to teach ethics.
In the family life the child himself finds his future revealed,
reflected by his relations to other members of the family. The spirit
of coöperation nurtured there will develop in the school through the
more various opportunities of relationship to others.
The earlier conditions cannot be restored, even the home training
cannot be brought back, except on the farm, and there, it is hoped, it
may be revived. The city or suburban children cannot have the
opportunity to pick up chips when too young to bring in wood; cannot
stand by and hold skeins of yarn, or go to the barn and help feed the
calves--all most interesting and provocative of endless questions.
They cannot go into the garden and pick berries or vegetables for
dinner, cannot learn how to avoid breaking the vines, or how to judge
the ripeness of the melons.
All that is probably not feasible for many, because it is not possible
to give children of this age responsibility without oversight, and
today's elders are loath to give and are often incapable of giving
oversight.
But while these circumstances over which, apparently, we have no
control, preclude much of the valuable outdoor work, food has still to
be prepared, dishes need washing, and clothes must be mended, even if
towels and napkins are no longer hemmed by hand. Rooms are still
swept and dusted, beds are made, and chairs and tables put straight.
Has any better means of giving experience ever been devised than these
small, daily tasks which differentiate men from animals? The care of
the fixed habitation, the foresight needed to prepare the things for
the family life in the weeks and months to come, the coöperation of
all the members of the family toward one common end--all tend toward
high _human ideals_. If the wise mother only realized the value to the
child of helping in such portions as are not too heavy, of being a
part of the life, she would let nothing stand in the way of using this
natural means of development. But with foreign domestics whose idea is
to get the various duties over as soon as possible, and whose gift is
not that of teaching, how is the child to grow into the normal ways of
right daily living, unconsciously and effectively?
If the parents continue to throw all the work of education on the
school, then the school must take the best means of fulfilling the
task.
Not only has the home put the burden of education on the school, but
the school has drawn the child away from the home. The school of today
demands much more from him than the school of the early New England
days. It has taken the time that was formerly given to assisting in
the duties of the household; it has taken from the home the interest
and responsibility that were developed through the coöperation in the
family life. School has taken the place of home in the child's
thoughts. In the morning the thought is of reaching school in time,
not of the home duties whose performance could lighten many a mother's
burden.
The school, hurried with a curriculum that is wasteful of time and
energy, lacking correlation in the studies (except in a few schools
that are noted exceptions proving the rule), has little time to relate
its work to the home as the kindergarten does in its morning talk; so
there must come an intermediate step in order that the school may
emphasize the home life and industries, and that a generation may grow
up who shall have a knowledge of the daily needs of life.
The interest awakened in the school will surely react upon the home.
It is like an expedition going out to make discoveries and to bring
back knowledge to its own land. The directive work of the school will
thus become a practical realization in the home. Then the cycle will
be complete, for while the school has separated the child from his
natural environment for many hours and weeks, it is sending him back
better equipped through knowledge and experience to fulfill his place
there.
How shall the ends be gained artificially by devices of the school?
For gained they must be, if civilization is to be maintained.
To quote from Isabel Bevier:
"As the home is so inseparably connected with the house, and our
comfort and efficiency are so greatly influenced by the kind of houses
in which we live, much of interest and importance centers in the study
of the house."
Moreover, with the house, its evolution, decoration, and care, may be
associated much that is interesting in history, art, and
architecture, as well as much that has a direct bearing on the daily
life of the individual.
The philosophers have struggled for centuries, each contributing
according to his experience and vision to determine what is the
purpose of life. America's thought could be translated into the word
efficiency. Yes, we might almost say she worships efficiency. If,
then, efficiency is to be the goal, what are the means to develop it?
Efficiency depends chiefly upon good health, and to maintain this we
must first consider in the scheme of education the physical
aids--food, air, water, clothing and shelter, exercise and rest--and
with this goal in view must come also recreation, play or amusement,
and beauty to develop the mental and the spiritual. In relating our
scheme of work to this ideal we will consider first the shelter.
The children of ten or twelve years of age have passed the
"make-believe" stage of play; they want the "real," but of their own
kind and age. After little children have made and played with toys and
foreshadowed the needs of the actual home, the time has come for the
youth to have his demands, which are not yet the demands of man and
manhood.
At the Tuberculosis Congress, held in Washington in 1908, a sanatorium
in England, which won a prize, presented among many good features a
system of graded work with graded tools, almost childlike implements
for the weak and unskilled, gradually advancing toward the normal as
the strength and health of the man grew. So it should be with the
material we should give to the children.
After the toy age a house about two-thirds the ordinary sized house
may be constructed. A room seven feet square is very livable for a
child. Three rooms is a very good working plant--the kitchen and the
bedroom, the dining and living room combined. Both boys and girls may
coöperate in planning, building, and furnishing this home.
The plan of a modern house may be drawn, basing it on the knowledge of
house architecture through history, of the modification necessary to
site through geography, and the knowledge that science has brought of
drainage, ventilation, and construction. The house could be built by
the manual training class, or if that is not feasible it may be built
by one of the firms making portable houses. At all events, it can be
painted by the children, and this will lead to lessons on color, the
use of paint and its composition.
While the "shelter" is being constructed the child must be considering
at the same time the principles of caring for the home, for this would
naturally influence the thought of furnishing. The simply furnished
home means less physical exertion, but not less beauty. The home
planned and executed on scientific principles of hygiene and
sanitation means a healthful home, a much cleaner home.
The shelter of the individual has been considered; now comes the
immediate protection of the child--its clothing. It would not be quite
practical in this little home to enter into the personal activities of
bathing and dressing. A very large doll, approximating the child, may
be used, one large enough so that it can wear boots, stockings, etc.,
that are usually bought for the real child. Here can be taught also
the lesson in wise spending.
The right care of the body must be included among the necessities of
education. The teaching of the principles of hygiene should be closely
related to the lives of the children. Correct habits, not rules, are
the proper prevention for all sorts of defects. To secure and maintain
a healthy body, habits of cleanliness and enthusiasm for health must
be inculcated. Such habits can be readily impressed on the body while
it is plastic--that is, while it is young; but they are acquired only
with difficulty and by much thought in after years. Hence there is the
greatest economy of time and energy in accustoming young people to
habits of daily living which will give them the best chance in after
life--the chance to be "healthy, happy, efficient human beings." Most
of the teaching must be by indirect methods--illustrations--and so the
doll may be used again to demonstrate and relate facts about the daily
life.
An old Scotch writer once said, "He that would be good must be happy,
and he that would be happy must be healthy." As has already been said,
the great increase of disease from causes under individual control,
such as that which is brought on by errors of diet, points to a need
for a more general education in this respect. The food problem is
fundamental to the welfare of the race. Society, to protect itself,
must take cognizance of the questions of food and nutrition. It is
necessary to give the child the right ideas on these subjects, for
only then will there be sufficient effort to get the right kind of
food and to have it clean. Right living goes further and demands the
right manner of serving and eating the food. The home table should be
the school of good manners and of good food habits of which the child
ought not to be deprived.
If all the foregoing principles have been developed, if the child has
been led to see the joy of living through these home activities, he
will consider the home the true shelter, the place where he can have
the happiest play, the easiest rest, where he can study most
earnestly, and express himself most honestly.
And the parents, the fathers and mothers of children of the city? How
far are we helping the city dwellers to take advantage of city life?
The principles back of housekeeping are the same, the end the
same--what are to be the means to stimulate the modern home-maker?
Show the possibilities within reach of them; send the children home
with ideas which the mother must consider.
Education in pursuing the so-called "humanities" has been holding up
to view a hypothetical man in a hypothetical environment.
The pursuit of gold has not been hindered thereby, and has gone on
without the restraints of education because of the complete detachment
of ideals inculcated from the actual daily life where money meant
personal pleasure and comfort for the time being.
The power over things gained by a few students was utilized by money
power to hasten all progress. Speed was the watchword. No one could
stop to see what injury he had caused. "Get there," really seemed to
be the motto. In this scramble for power the "purpose" for which life
is lived has been lost sight of. No "worthy aim" has been impressed on
the mind of the child.
An awakening has come and the school is the leading factor in the
upward movement. Education is coming to have a new meaning, or better,
perhaps, is going back to the older meaning with new materials. No
knowledge or power the youth may acquire will avail in real struggle
for existence of the race without a definite aim to hold steady the
eye fixed on a certain goal. This is a law of man's existence.
The change in point of view has been growing like a root underground.
It seems to have suddenly sent up shoots in every direction. In no
line of thought has this change come more generally than in relation
to the things youth should be taught. Himself and his relation to his
environment are now to the front. Instead of extolling man as the lord
of all created things, the youth is made to see that man unaided by
scientific knowledge is at the mercy of Nature's forces; that man in
crowds is sure to succumb unless he makes a strong effort to keep
himself erect.
Hence the boys are given manual training--power over wood and stone,
steam and electricity; and are taught the principles of production of
food and metals. The girls are being taught to distinguish values in
textiles and food stuffs; to manage finances and to keep houses in a
sanitary manner.
It is the business of the higher education at once to apply the
knowledge of preventive measures to its own students and through them
to reach the people, but it has been very slow to take up the cause of
better environment.
In colleges there is still more emphasis laid on external works, such
as water supply, drainage, etc., than on the more intimate hourly
needs of fresh air and clean rooms. The halls, study rooms, and dining
rooms of colleges are notoriously ill ventilated and not over clean.
The senses are blunted at an age when they should be keenly
sensitive. It is only within ten years or so that very many of the
higher schools have made a point of indoor sanitation beyond plumbing
provisions. Outdoor sports have been relied upon to give sufficient
impetus to the health side of education.
A new element has come into the State universities through the Home
Economics courses, which have been steadily growing in favor during
the last two decades. Within that time several buildings have been
erected and equipped to teach the principles of sanitary and economic
living both in institution, school, and family life.
Probably no one movement has been so powerful as this in convincing
educators of the efficiency of trained women as factors in sanitary
progress. In no other direction is the outlook for social service
greater. The woman must, however, be more than a willing worker; she
must be educated in science as a foundation for sanitary work.
Within the next few years the demand for trained women is sure far to
exceed the supply, for the fundamental sciences are not to be acquired
in one or two years.
Young college women are even now realizing their mistake in neglecting
the sciences. They assumed that science was not of practical use. They
assumed that educational curricula were stable and would go on in the
same lines forever.
The high school is now fully awake to these vital factors. Some of the
best buildings in the United States are the high school buildings,
those of the West excelling those of the East. By 1911 nearly every
school will have a course in Sanitary Science. It may be under the
name of Home Economics, or of Camp Cookery, or of House Building, but
the idea of better physical environment has already taken root. In the
extension of school work by the employment of the school visitor to
supplement the work of the teacher in the grade schools, in Parents'
Associations, in Mothers' Clubs, in social endeavors on every side,
there is coming the study of more special branches of sanitary
science, clean air, clean floors, clean clothes--where once cooking
lessons were the extent to which the workers could lead.
Evolution has at last been accepted as applying to man as well as to
animals. In his inaugural address, November, 1909, President H. J.
Waters, of Kansas Agricultural College, said: "... for every dollar
that goes into the fitting of a show herd of cattle or hogs, or into
experiments in feeding domestic animals, there should be a like sum
available for fundamental research in feeding men for the greatest
efficiency.... We have millions for research in the realm of domestic
animals and nothing for the application of science to the rearing of
children."
Evidence is not wanting that all this is to be speedily changed. Man
has awakened to the fact that he is "the sickest beast alive" and that
he has himself to blame, and, moreover, that it is within his power to
change his condition and that speedily.
After all, human life and effort are governed largely by the conscious
or unconscious value put upon the varied elements that go to make up
the daily round.
It seems to be a universal law that effort must precede satisfaction,
from the infant feeding to the man building up a successful business.
The satisfaction grows in a measure as the effort was a prolonged or
sustained one.
Well-being is a product of effort and resulting satisfaction. The
child without interest in work or play does not develop; the man with
no stimulus walks through life as in a dream.
The first steps in "civilizing" (?) a nation or tribe are to suggest
_wants_--things to strive for. Struggle, with all its attendant evils,
seems the lever that moves the world. It is therefore in line that
health, and whatever favors it, is to be gained at the expense of
struggle. The one necessary element is that men should value it enough
to struggle for it.
Sanitary science above all others, when applied, benefits the whole
people, raises the level of productive life.
In the rapid development of our civilization, the laboratory, the
shop, the school can be the quickest mediums of suggesting wants.
In an earlier chapter, the indifference to clean conditions, the
ignorance of the means of obtaining pure food and clean air, were
dwelt upon, and still later the need of _will_ to choose the right
thing.
Now we should consider the means of stimulating that choice. So far it
has been chiefly exploitation for the personal gain of the
manufacturer, who has persuaded the people to buy his product
regardless of its economic or hygienic effect. Thrift has been
undermined most subtly.
"That's the secret of the whole situation we're talking about; it's
easier to buy a new shirt than to take care of the one you've
got."[15]
[15] Meredith Nicholson, Lords of High Decision, p. 133.
All sense of values has been lost, so that with no sound basis choice
is apt to be unwise, unsatisfactory, and is gradually dropped, while
the individual drifts.
No more effective agent for the dissemination of knowledge was ever
devised than the American Public School. If only it would live up to
its opportunities, its teachers could bring to its millions of
receptive minds the best practice in daily living (never mind the
theory for the children), and through the children reach the home,
where the infants may be saved from the risks that the elders have
run.
To be effective, however, school conditions should be satisfactory,
and teachers should be familiar with the best ways of living, or at
least in active sympathy with the medical inspector and the school
nurse.
No more revolting revelations have ever been made than those usually
locked in the hearts of these faithful servants of the people. How
they can have courage to go on in face of parental and community
indifference is a marvel. We shall consider in the next chapter how
the average parent is to be aroused.
But the leaders in educational and scientific thought--what of them?
The school is the pride of the community and measures the progress of
the community toward ideals. Alas, how is pride laid low in most
public school buildings in the inability of most of the teachers to
see the relations between mental stupidity and bad air.
The awakening has begun, however, and thousands of teachers have
responded and are urging authorities to burn more coal, to employ more
help, to keep the house clean, to make it more beautiful, to make the
curriculum more helpful, to make provision for good food to be
purchased, and the hundred ways in which the school may be the most
powerful civilizing factor the nation has. _But civilization must not
spell disease and ruin._
The economic factor must not be lost sight of. To tell the boy and
girl that they are as good as any does not give them the right to the
most expensive food and clothing they see. How shall they choose
wisely in the multitude of new things? They wish the best, naturally,
and all America is honeycombed with the wrong idea that the best costs
the most. An Alaska Indian came into the store in Juneau one day to
buy some canned peas. The storekeeper said, "I am out of the brand you
want." "No peas?" asked the Indian. "No, only some small cans of
French peas at forty cents a can. You don't want those." "Why not? Me
want the best."
The schools of domestic economy, the classes in all grade schools,
will have to attack and conquer these prejudices as to values, or,
rather, will need to substitute right estimates of value before our
people will choose wisely in distributing their income, for that is
what right living means. The division of the income according to the
necessities of health and efficiency, not according to whim or selfish
desire, is sometimes estimated as
20 to 25 per cent for rent
25 to 30 per cent for food
10 to 15 per cent for clothing
This leaves only forty-five or thirty per cent for other things, and
the pennies must be carefully counted to cover fuel, light,
amusements, education, books, insurance, or investments. Something
that the family would like must be left out--no matter what, providing
only it does not injure their efficiency as wage-earners, as
comfortable human beings.
The sensation of comfort or satisfaction is so completely a psychic
factor that the school training has a great chance to affect after
life. The child can acquire the habit of being more comfortable in
plain, washable, clean clothes, with clean hands, than in dirty,
ragged furbelows. This habit once thoroughly acquired is not likely to
be quickly lost. Provision for clean hands is a necessity in school,
and ways of making a small amount of soap and water serve may also be
taught. All the while, care is to be taken not to introduce
unnecessarily expensive materials or to inculcate over-refined
notions.
Sound instruction as to dangers of transference of saliva, of nose
discharge, etc., can be given without also giving the despair of
impossible achievement.
The teaching in the classes must have this practical bearing on daily
life. It is insisted on here because unclean hands are the chief
source of infectious disease.
Instead of blaming water supplies, dusty streets, or even contagion by
the breath, sanitarians are everywhere putting emphasis upon the
actual contact of moist mucus with milk and other food, in preparation
or in serving. It is not a supercilious notion to examine tumblers
for finger marks, or to object to the habit of wetting the finger with
saliva in turning leaves of books. These little unclean acts are the
unconscious habits that cling to a person in spite of education from
reading. The greatest service to be done today in improving the health
of the community is in the application of the principles which may be
summed up in the phrases--fresh air all the twenty-four hours, clean
hands the livelong day, the free use of the handkerchief to protect
from contamination of mouth and nose.
All these small personal habits should be taught in the earliest
months of life, _i. e._, in the home; but if the child reaches school
untaught, then in defense of the whole community the school must
insist upon teaching them.