AT Menomonie, Wisconsin, Mr. L. D. Harvey, lately president of
the National Education Association, has established a Homemakers'
School. It does not turn out teachers. Its course of instruction
is solely for the prospective housewife.
The first grand division of study is The House.
We here observe that the housewife is going to be something of a
Sanitary Engineer, since she studies Chemistry, Physics, and
Bacteriology in their "application to such subjects as the
heating, lighting, ventilation, and plumbing of a house." It is
thought that knowledge of this sort "will go a long way toward
improving the health conditions of the country."
We also observe that the housewife is going to be something of an
Interior Decorator, since she studies "design, color, house
planning and furnishing."
She also acquires some skill as Purchasing Agent, Bookkeeper, and
Employer of Labor when she takes the course on Household
Management and studies "the proper apportioning of income among
the different lines of home expenditures, the systematizing and
keeping of household accounts, and the question of domestic
service."
The second grand division is Food Study and Preparation.
Here the housewife becomes, to some extent, a Dietitian, studying
"the chemical processes in the preparation and digestion of
foods," and considering the question "how she shall secure for
the family the foods best suited to the various activities of
each individual."
Here, likewise, she makes a start toward being a Pure Food
Expert, through a study of "physical and chemical changes induced
in food products by the growth of molds, yeasts, and bacteria,"
and a start toward being a Health Officer, through a study of
"bacteria in their relation to disease, sources of infection,
personal and household disinfection."
Nor does she omit to acquire some of the technique of the
Physical Director through a course in Physiology bearing on
"digestion, storage of energy, rest, sleep, exercise, and
regularity of habits."
Of course, in her work in cookery, she pays some attention to
special cookery for invalids.
The third grand division, that of Clothing and Household Fabrics,
produces a Dressmaker, a Milliner, and an Embroiderer, as well as
a person trained to see to it that "the expenditure for clothing
shall be correct in proportion to the expenditure for other
purposes."
The fourth grand division, the Care of Children, is of course
limitless. The rearing of the human young is, as we all know and
as Mr. Eliot of Harvard has insisted, the most intellectual
occupation in the world. Here the homemaker applies all the
knowledge she has gained from her study of the hygiene of foods
and of the hygiene of clothes, and also makes some progress
toward becoming a Trained Nurse and a Kindergartner by means of
researches into "infant diseases and emergencies," "the stages of
the mental development of the child," "the child's imagination
with regard to truth-telling and deceit," "the history of
children's books," and "the art of story-telling."
Passing over the fifth grand division, Home Nursing and
Emergencies (in which the pupil learns simply "the use of
household remedies," "the care of the sick-room," etc.), we come
to the wide expanse of the sixth grand division, Home and Social
Economics.
The work in this division begins with a study of the primitive
evolution of the home and comes on down to the present time, when
"the passing of many of the former lines of woman's work into the
factory has brought to many women leisure time which should be
spent in social service."
Note that last fact carefully. Home Economics is no attempt to
drive women back into home seclusion. On the contrary, it is an
attempt to bring the home and its occupants into the scientific
and sociological developments of the outside world.
For this reason, in traversing the division of Home and Social
Economics, the pupil encounters "an attempt to determine problems
in civic life which seem to be a part of the duties of women."
Seventhly and lastly, there is a division dedicated to
Literature, in which "a systematic course in reading is carried
on through the two years." Indispensable! No degree of
proficiency at inserting calories in correct numbers in to Little
Sally's stomach could atone for lack of skill at leading Little
Sally herself in morning strolls through the "Child's Garden of
Verses," with trowel in hand to dig up the gayest plants and
reset them in the memory.
Which brings us back to the observation that the Consumption of
Wealth is a generality.
The homemaker may happen to be a specialist in some one
direction, but it is clear that she cannot simultaneously know as
much about food values as the real dietitian, as much about the
physical care of her child as the real trained nurse, as much
about the wholesomeness of her living arrangements as the real
sanitarian, as much about music as the Thomas Orchestra, as much
about social service as Mr. Devine, and as much about poems as
Mr. Stevenson. Her peculiar equipment, if she is a good
homemaker, is a round of experience and a bent of mind which make
it possible for her to cooperate intelligently with the
dietitian, the trained nurse, the sanitarian, the Thomas
Orchestra, Mr. Devine, Mr. Stevenson, and the various other
representatives of the various other specialized techniques of
the outside world.
It follows that her school discipline cannot be too
comprehensive. No other occupation demands such breadth of sense
and sensibility. One could make a perfectly good cotton
manufacturer on the basis of a very narrow training. One cannot
make a good consumer without a really LIBERAL EDUCATION.
For this reason it becomes necessary to resist certain
narrownesses in certain phases of Home Economics.
One of these narrownesses is the assumption that because a thing
happens to be close to us it is therefore important. We have
heard lecturers insist that because a house contains drain-pipes
a woman should learn all about drain-pipes. But why? In most
communities drain-pipes are installed and repaired and in every
way controlled by gentlemen who are drain-pipe specialists. The
woman who lives in the house has no more real need of a knowledge
of the structural mysteries of drain-pipes than a reporter has of
a knowledge of the structural mysteries of his typewriting
machine. The office mechanic fixes all that for him, and, so far
as his efficiency as a reporter is concerned, an investigation of
his faithful keyboard's internal arrangements would be in most
cases an amiable waste of time.
Another possible narrowness is the attempt to manufacture
"cultural backgrounds" for various important but quite
safe-and-sane household tasks.
For instance, in the books and in the courses of instruction (of
college grade) on "The House" we have sometimes observed
elaborate accounts of the evolution of the human home, beginning
with the huts of the primitive Simianians. And in pursuing the
very essential subject of "Clothes and Fabrics" we have not
infrequently found ourselves in the midst of spacious preliminary
dissertations on the structure of the loom, beginning with that
which was used by the Anthropenguins.
Now we would not for the world speak disparagingly of looms or
huts. We have ourselves examined some of them in the Hull House
Museum in Chicago and in the woods of Canada, and have found them
instructive. We suggest only that college life is short, that the
college curriculum is crowded, and that (except possibly for
those students who are especially interested in anthropology or
in industrial evolution) it would surely be a misfortune to learn
the Simianian hut and to miss Rossetti's "House of Life," or to
get the impression that as a "cultural background" for
shirtwaists the Anthropengruinian loom can really compete with
Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus."
If this occasional tendency toward exaggerating the importance of
drain-pipes, window-curtains, and door-mats were to grow strong,
and if girls, as a class, should be required to spend any large
proportion of their time on the specialized history and sociology
of feminine implements and tasks while the boys were still in the
current of the affairs of the race, we should indeed want
President Thomas of Bryn Mawr to repeat on a thousand lecture
platforms her indignant assertion of the fact that "nothing more
disastrous for women, or for men, can be conceived of than
specialized education of women as a sex."
These parenthetical observations, however, amount simply to the
expression of our personal opinion that Home Economics, like
every new idea, carries with it large quantities of dross which
will have to be refined out in the smelter of trial. The real
metal in it is its attempt to establish the principle that
intelligent Consumption is an important and difficult task. For
that reason it will not only desire but demand the utmost
equality of educational opportunity. And women, like men, will
continue to get their "cultural backgrounds" in the great
achievements of the whole race, where they can hold converse with
Lincoln and Darwin and the makers of the Cologne Cathedral and
George Meredith and Pasteur and Karl Marx and Whistler and Joan
of Arc and St. John.
The woman voiced a great truth who said that the soul which can
irradiate the numberless pettinesses of home management (and it
is folly to deny that there ARE numberless pettinesses in it) is
the soul "nourished elsewhere." Think it over. It tells the
story. Whether that "elsewhere" is the deep recesses of her own
religious nature or the wide stretches of the great arts and
sciences, it is always an "elsewhere."
Let that be granted, as it must be granted. Let us say that there
shall be no abridgment of the offerings of so-called academic
education. What does a course of study like that of Mr. Harvey's
Homemakers' School attempt to add to academic education?
Principally three things.
First: Certain manual arts.
Second: Certain domestic applications of the physical and
sociological sciences.
Third: Money Sense in Expenditure (in the course on Household
Management).
The last of these three things is appearing in many places. At
the University of Illinois, for instance, Professor Kinley, now
delegate from the United States to the Pan-American Congress, has
given courses in Home Administration for women which he has
regarded as of equal importance with his courses in Business
Administration for men.
At the University of Chicago, in the Department of Household
Administration, Course 44 is on "The Administration of the House"
and includes "the proper apportionment of income."
The business man says: "My sales cost, or my manufacturing cost,
or my office-force cost, is such and such a per cent. of my total
cost. When it goes above that, I want to know why; and I find
out; and, if there isn't a mighty good reason for its going up, I
make it go down again to where it was." Shall we come to the day
when in spending the money which has been earned in business we
shall say: "Such and such a per cent. to food; and such and such
a per cent. to clothes; and such and such a per cent. to shelter;
and such and such a per cent. to health and recreation; and such
and such a per cent. to good works; and such and such other per
cents. to various other purposes?" Shall we come to the day when
we shall consume wealth with as much forethought and with as much
balance of judgment between conflicting claims as we now exhibit
in acquiring wealth?
They are trying to develop this "Costs System for Home
Expenditures" in many of the schools and departments of Home
Economics to-day. They believe that most people, because of not
looking ahead and because of not making definite plans based on
previous experience, come to the contemplation of their bills on
the first of each month with every reason to confess that they
have bought those things which they ought not to have bought and
have left unbought those things which they ought to have bought.
But it is not only a matter of reaching a systematic instead of a
helter-skelter enjoyment of the offerings of the world. It is
also a matter of reaching, by study of money values, a mental
habit of economy. And it comes at a time when that habit is
needed.
We are just beginning to realize in the United States that we
cannot spend all our annual earnings on living expenses and still
have a surplus for fresh capital for new industrial enterprises.
We are on the point of perceiving that we are cramping and
stunting the future industrial expansion of the country by our
personal extravagance. We shall soon really believe Mr. James J.
Hill when he says that "every dollar unprofitably spent is a
crime against posterity."
When international industrial competition reaches its climax,
that nation will have an advantage whose people feel most keenly
that the wise expenditure of income is a patriotic as well as a
personal duty.
But is this a matter for women alone? Do not men also consume?
Are there no vats in Milwaukee, no stills in Kentucky, no
factories wrapping paper-rings around bunches of dead leaves at
Tampa? Are there no men's tailors, gents' furnishing shops,
luncheons, clubs, banquets, athletics, celebrations? And as for
home expenditures themselves, is the man simply to bring the
plunder to the door, get patted on the head, and trot off in
search of more plunder? We must doubt if economy will be reached
by such a route. We find ourselves agreeing rather with the Home
Economics lecturer who said: "There never yet was a family income
really wisely expended without cooperation in all matters between
husband and wife."
The Massachusetts legislature has passed a law looking toward the
teaching of Thrift in the public schools. Boys and girls need it
equally. And we venture to surmise that in so far as the new art
and science of Consumption is concerned with wise spending, the
bulk of its teachings ultimately will be enjoyed by both sexes.
It will not be, to any great extent, a specialized education for
women.
So much for the "Money Sense in Expenditure" which a full Home
Economics course adds to "academic" education. The more we admit
its value, the more convinced we must be that it ought to include
every kind of expenditure and both kinds of human being.
A precisely similar conviction arises with regard to those
"domestic applications of the physical and sociological sciences"
which a full Home Economics course adds to an "academic"
education.
Those "domestic" applications are most of them broadly "human"
applications. They bear on daily living, exercise, fresh air,
personal cleanliness, diet, sleep, the avoidance of contagion,
methods of fighting off disease, general physical efficiency.
They all amount to what Mrs. Ellen H. Richards calls Right
Living. She would have four R's instead of three: Reading,
Riting, Rithmetic, and Right Living.
Now is Right Living to be only for girls?
Mr. Eliot of Harvard does not think so. In a recent "Survey of
the Needs of Education," he said:
"Public instruction in preventive medicine must be provided for
all children and the hygienic method of living must be taught in
all schools. . . . To make this new knowledge and skill a
universal subject of instruction in our schools, colleges, and
universities is by no means impossible--indeed, it would not even
be difficult, for it is a subject full of natural history as well
as social interest. . . . American schools of every sort ought to
provide systematic instruction on public and private hygiene,
diet, sex hygiene, and the prevention of disease and premature
death, not only because these subjects profoundly affect human
affections and public happiness, but because they are of high
economic importance."
A large part of Home Economics is simply Living Conditions. It is
simply the lessons of Bacteriology, Chemistry, Physiology, and
Sociology about the common facts of daily physical and social
existence.
It may very well be, therefore, that what Mr. Eliot had in mind
will not only come to pass but will even exceed his expectations.
It may very well be that the educational policy of the future was
correctly search-lighted by Miss Henrietta I. Goodrich (who used
to direct the Boston School of Housekeeping before it was merged
into Simmons College) when she said:
"We need to have courage to break the present courses in
household arts and domestic science into their component parts
and begin again on the much broader basis of a study of living
conditions. Our plea would be this: that instruction in the facts
of daily living be incorporated in the state's educational system
from the primary grades through the graduate departments of the
universities, with a rank equal to that of any subject that is
taught, AS REQUIRED WORK FOR BOTH BOYS AND GIRLS."
We revert now finally to the "manual arts" which a full course in
Home Economics adds to an "academic" education. In this matter,
just as in the matter of Money Sense in Expenditure and in the
matter of Right Living, we observe that the ultimate issue of the
movement is not so much a specialized education for women as a
practical efficiency in the common things of life for men and
women both.
A reasonable proficiency in manual arts will some day be the
heritage of all educated people. Mr. Eliot, in his "Survey of the
Needs of Education," speaks appreciatingly of his father's having
caused him to learn carpentry and wood-turning. He goes on to
say:
"This I hold to be the great need of education in the United
States--the devoting of a much larger proportion of the total
school time to the training of the eye, ear, and hand."
It follows, then, that cooking and sewing for girls in the
elementary schools must be made just as rigorous a discipline for
eye and hand as wood-working is for boys. It even follows that
boys and girls will often get their manual training together.
It will not be a case of "household drudgery" for the girls while
the boys are studying civics.
Somewhere in this article (and as close to this paragraph as we
can get the Art Director to put it) the reader will find a
picture of the "living room" of the "model" house of the
Washington-Allston Elementary School in Boston. The boys and
girls of graduating grade in that school give four hours a week
to matters connected with the welfare of that house. They have
furnished it throughout with their own handiwork, the girls
making pillow-cases, wall-coverings, window-curtains, etc., and
the boys making chairs, tables, cupboards, etc. Succeeding
classes will furnish it again. THE REASON WHY MR. CRAWFORD, THE
MASTER OF THE SCHOOL, CHOSE TO HAVE A HOUSE FOR A MANUAL TRAINING
LABORATORY WAS SIMPLY THAT A HOUSE OFFERS AMPLER OPPORTUNITIES
THAN ANY OTHER KIND OF PLACE FOR INSTRUCTION IN THE PRACTICAL
EFFICIENCIES OF DAILY LIVING FOR BOTH SEXES.
The system will be complete when the girls get a bigger training
in design by making more of the chairs, and when the boys get a
bigger training in diet by doing more of the cooking.