The Project Gutenberg eBook, Vocational Guidance for Girls, by Marguerite Stockman Dickson This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Vocational Guidance for Girls Author: Marguerite Stockman Dickson Release Date: April 9, 2005 [eBook #15595] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE FOR GIRLS*** E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Jeannie Howse, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 15595-h.htm or 15595-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/5/5/9/15595/15595-h/15595-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/5/5/9/15595/15595-h.zip) +-------------------------------------------------------+ | | | 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 | | | +-------------------------------------------------------+ "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. Bruere. 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 cooeperation 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 cooeperative 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. Bruere 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. Bruere 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." CHAPTER V THE EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES INVOLVED The three agencies most vitally concerned in this problem of "woman making" are necessarily the home, the church, and the school--the home and the church, because of their vital interest in the personal result; the school, because, whatever public opinion has demanded, schools have never been able to turn out merely educated human beings, but always boys and girls, prospective men and women. And so they must continue to do. Nature reasserts itself with every coming generation. This being so, we must continue to "make women." If we desire to make homemaking women, the most economical way to accomplish this is to use the already existing machinery for making women of some sort. We cannot begin too soon, nor continue our efforts too faithfully. The school cannot leave the whole matter to the home, nor can the home safely assume that the "domestic science" course or courses will do all that is needed for the girl. Being a woman is a complex, many-sided business for which training must be broad and long-continued. The teacher has perhaps scarcely realized her responsibilities or her opportunities in this matter. For years, and in fact until very recently, the whole tendency in education for girls has been toward a training which ignores sex and ultimate destiny. The teachers themselves were so trained and are therefore the less prepared to see the necessity for any special teaching along these lines. They may even resent any demand for specialized instruction for girls. Yet we are confronted by the fact that the majority of girls do marry, and that many of this majority are woefully lacking in the knowledge and training they should have. Nor are these girls exclusively from the poor and ignorant classes. There is no question about the responsibility of the school in the matter. The state which "trains for citizenship" cannot logically ignore the necessity for training the mothers of future citizens. "While I sympathize profoundly with the claim of woman for every opportunity which she can fill," says G. Stanley Hall in _Adolescence_, "and yield to none in appreciation of her ability, I insist that the cardinal defect in the woman's college is that it is based upon the assumption, implied and often expressed, if not almost universally acknowledged, that girls should primarily be trained to independence and self-support; and matrimony and motherhood, if it come, will take care of itself, or, as some even urge, is thus best provided for." This criticism, of existing educational conditions is quite as applicable to schools for younger girls as to those which Dr. Hall has in mind. There is no reason why both school and college may not fit girls for a broad and general usefulness, for "independence and self-support," and at the same time give them the training for that which, with the majority already mentioned, comes to be the great work of their lives. Through all the lower grades of school life, and to a certain extent through the whole course, the methods of instruction used will be largely indirect. The child will-seldom be told, "This is to teach you how to keep house." I can think of no field in which this indirect method will produce greater results than the one we are considering. [Illustration: Montavilla School garden, Portland, Oregon, where boys and girls raise vegetables for serving in the lunchroom. Here the science of growing things is taught as part of the "training for citizenship"] [Illustration: Lunchroom where vegetables grown in the Montavilla School garden are prepared and eaten] [Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros. A model school home. One way of teaching children how to "keep house" is by means of the model home where they are given instruction in all the duties of the homemaker] The teacher, in most cases, must begin her homemaking training by realizing that her own example is by the very nature of things opposed to the homemaking principle, the unmarried teacher being the rule in most of our schools. Her first care, then, must be to counteract her own example. Her references to home life must be always of the most appreciative and even reverent sort. If, as is quite possible, she comes from unsatisfactory conditions in her own home, she must be doubly careful lest her prejudices be passed on to her pupils. She will find ways in which to let it be understood that her ideals of home life are not wanting, although she has not as yet--perhaps for some reason never will--become a homemaker. I have sometimes thought that teachers, in their effort to impress children in more direct ways, lose sight of the great effect of their unconscious influence. After all, it is what the teacher does, rather than what she says, that impresses; and what she _is_, regulates what she does. The teacher must, therefore, have the right attitude toward homemaking and domestic life. It may be of the greatest value in determining the force of her influence in this direction for the children to catch intimate little glimpses of her domestic accomplishments, of her sewing, or of her cooking, or of her quick knowledge and deft handling of emergency cases. The teacher whose influence is felt most and lasts longest is the one whose "motherliness" supplements her academic acquirements and supplies a sympathetic understanding of the child. [Illustration: Canning tomatoes at the Montavilla School. In such a class the mothers of future citizens are given training in one of the fundamental needs of the home--scientific cooking] [Illustration: Lunchroom where children benefit by the scientific cooking of the vegetables they grow] With innate motherliness as a basis, the teacher must build up a careful understanding not only of child nature, but of man and woman nature as the developed product of child growth. She must be a student of the "woman question" as a vital problem, always recognizing that the whole social structure inevitably depends upon the status of woman in the world. She must face without flinching her responsibilities in sex matters. She may, or may not, be called upon to furnish sex instruction to the girls under her care, but no rules can free her from her moral responsibility in striving to keep the sex atmosphere clean and invigorating. The "conspiracy of silence" on these subjects is broken, and we must accept the fact that modesty does not require an assumed or a real ignorance of the most wonderful of nature's laws. "The idea that celibacy is the 'aristocracy of the future' is soundly based if the Business of Being a Woman rests on a mystery so questionable that it cannot be frankly and truthfully explained by a girl's mother the moment her interest and curiosity seek satisfaction."[4] And what the mother should tell, the teacher must know. Practical use of the teacher's carefully worked-out theories will be made all along the line of the girl's, and to a certain degree the boy's, education. The indirect teaching of the primary grades will give place in the higher grades to more direct dealing with the science, or, better, sciences, upon which homemaking rests. The classroom becomes a "school of theory." The home stands in the equally vital position of a laboratory in which the girl sees the theory worked out and in time performs her own experiments. The finest teaching presupposes perfect cooeperation between school and home. [Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros. Mothers' and daughters' meeting on sewing day. Cooeperation between the home and the school makes for the best teaching of domestic science] The first duty of the mother, like that of the teacher, is to preserve always a right attitude toward home life. The girl who grows up in an ideal home will be likely to look forward to making such a home some day. Or, if the home is not in all respects ideal, the father or mother who nevertheless recognizes ideal homes as possible may show the girl directly or otherwise how to avoid the mischance of a less than perfect home. The prevalence of divorce places before young men and women sad examples of mismating, of incompetent homemakers, of wrecked homes. We can scarcely estimate the blow struck at ideals of marriage in the minds of girls and boys by these flaunted failures. Nor can we even guess how many boys and girls are led to a cynical attitude toward all marriage by their daily suffering in families where parents have missed the real meaning of "home." However practical we may become, therefore--and we must be practical in this matter--we must never overlook the need for parents to give home life an atmosphere of charm. No one else can take their place in doing this. Hence it is their first duty to make homemaking seem worth while. The home must take the lead also in giving the idea of homemaking as a definite and scientific profession. The school may teach the science, but unless the home shows practical application of the scientific principles, it would be much like teaching agriculture without showing results upon real soil. Skillful teachers recognize the home as a valuable adjunct to their school equipment and are able by wise cooeperation to use it to its full value. The home, in its character of laboratory for the school of domestic theory, must possess certain qualifications. Like all laboratories, it should be well equipped. This does not mean necessarily with expensive outfit, but with at least the best that means will allow. It implies that the home shall be recognized as a teaching institution quite as much as the school. Like other laboratories, it must be a place of experiment, not merely a preserver of tradition. The efficient laboratory presupposes an informed and open-minded presiding genius. [Illustration: Courtesy of L.A. Alderman First crop of radishes and lettuce at the Alameda Park School, Portland, Oregon, June, 1916. Even in the primary grades children may learn much about the science of growing things] [Illustration: Bringing exhibits to a school fair in Tacoma, Washington. Skillful teachers who recognize the home as a valuable adjunct to the school equipment encourage the children to make gardens at home] The greatest service that the home can render in the cause of training girls for homemaking is probably close, painstaking study of its own individual girl--her likes, dislikes, aptitudes, and limitations. Home-mindedness shows itself nowhere so much as in the home; lack of home-mindedness shows there quite as much. The results of such study should throw great light upon the problem of the girl's future. Combined with the observations recorded by her teacher during year after year of the girl's school life, this study offers the strongest arguments for or against this or that career. Frequent and sympathetic conferences between parent and teacher become a necessity. There is then less likelihood of opposing counsel when the girl seeks guidance toward her life work. It is quite probable that, while the school undertakes to lay a general foundation for homemaking efficiency, the home, when it reaches the full measure of its power and responsibility, will be best fitted to help the girl to specialize in the direction most suited to her individual power. It can, if it will, _give_ the girl individual opportunities such as the mere fact of numbers forbids the school to give. The special work of the church in training the girl is necessarily that which has to do with her spiritual concept of life, the strengthening of her moral fiber. Here school, home, and church must each contribute its share. None of them can undertake alone so important and delicate a task. Any attempt to make arbitrary divisions in the work of these three agencies is bound to be at least a partial failure. Conditions differ so widely that we can only say of much of the work, "at school or church or in the home," or, better, "at school and church and home in cooeperation." Each must supplement the efforts of the other, and where one fails, the other must take up the task. It really matters little where the work is done, provided that it _is_ done. The ensuing chapters of this book are written in the hope that they may bring the vital problems of girl training and girl guidance home to both teacher and parent; and especially that they may convince both of the value of cooeperation in the inspiring work of helping our daughters to make the most of their lives. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 4: Ida M. Tarbell, _The Business of Being a Woman_.] CHAPTER VI TRAINING THE LITTLE CHILD "Children are the home's highest product." That means at the outset that we have children because we believe in them, and that we train them, as the skilled workman shapes his wood and clay, to achieve the greatest result of which the human material is capable. A factory's output can be standardized. An engine's power can be measured. But he who trains a child can never fully know the mind he works with nor the result he attains. We do know, however, that if it is subject to certain influences, trained by certain laws, _the chances are_ that this mind which we cannot fully know will react in a certain way. To attempt in a chapter to outline a system of training for children would be an attempt doomed to certain failure. Books are written on this subject, and the shelves of the child-study and child-training department in the libraries are rapidly filling. What I have in mind here is rather a single line of the child's development--that which leads toward making him a useful factor in the home life of which he forms a part. The boy or girl who fills successfully a place in the home of his childhood will be in a fair way to undertake successfully the greater task of founding a home of his own. In the days of infancy and early childhood, training for boys and girls may be more nearly identical than in later life. A large part of the differentiation in the work and play of little boys and girls would seem to be quite artificial. We give dolls to girls and drums to boys, but only because of some preconceived notion of our own. The girls will drum as loudly and the boys care for the baby quite as tenderly, until some one ridicules them and they learn to simulate a scorn for "boys' things" and "girls' things" which they do not really feel. Throughout this chapter, therefore, it is to be assumed that the training suggested is quite as applicable and quite as necessary for one sex as for the other. Young mothers sometimes ask the family doctor, "When shall I begin to train the baby to eat at regular intervals, to go to sleep without rocking, in general to accept the plan of life we outline for him?" The answer seldom varies: "Before he is twenty-four hours old." It is therefore evident that all the basic principles of living, whether physical or mental, must have their foundations far back in the child's young life. [Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros. Helping with the housework. The boy or girl who successfully fills a place in the home of his childhood will be in a fair way to undertake successfully the greater task of founding a home of his or her own] As a basis for all the rest, we must work for health. A truly successful life, rounded and full, presupposes health. Regular habits, nourishing food, plenty of sleep, are axiomatic in writings treating of the care of young children, yet it is surprising how often these rules are violated. "It is easier" to give the child what he wants or what the others are having; easier to let him sit up than to put him to bed; easier to regard the moment than the years ahead. [Illustration: Already well started on his education] Aside from the physical foundation, the training that we are to give our little children will probably be based upon our conception of what they need to make them good sons and daughters, good brothers and sisters, good friends, good husbands and wives, and good fathers and mothers. In other words, it is the social aspect of life that we have in mind, and our social ideals. Whatever the boy "wants to be when he grows up," he is sure to have social relations with his kind. Whether the girl marries or remains single, she cannot entirely escape these relations. Indeed they are thrust upon both boy and girl already. What then do they need to enable them to be successful in the human relations of living? We might enumerate here a long list of virtues that will help, but, since long lists shatter concentration, let us narrow them to four: (1) sympathy, (2) self-control, (3) unselfishness, (4) industry. I do not mean to say that, with these four qualities only, a man will make a successful merchant or farmer, or that a woman will become a good housekeeper or a skillful teacher. But I do mean that in family relations these four qualities are worth more than intellectual attainments or any sort of manual skill. It is really astonishing to see how much these four will cover. We desire thrift--what is thrift but self-control? Tolerance--what but sympathy--the "put yourself in his place" feeling? Courtesy--what but unselfishness? Let us, then, in the child's early years concentrate upon sympathy, self-control, unselfishness, and industry. You will doubtless remember Cabot's summary of the four requirements of man[5]--work, play, love, and worship. Suppose we could write on the wall of every nursery in the land: Sympathy } { Work Self-control } in { Play Unselfishness } { Love Industry } { Worship Would not this writing on the wall be a fruitful reminder to the mothers? The period of early childhood is the one in which the home may act with least interference as the child's teacher. Later, whether she will or no, the mother must share the work of training with the school, the church, and that indefinite influence we class vaguely as society. During these few early years, then, the mother must use her opportunity well. It will soon be gone. How shall she teach such abstract virtues as sympathy, unselfishness, self-control? Recognizing the fact that the little child acts merely as his instinct and feelings prompt, she must make all training at this stage of his life take the form of developing the instincts. Probably the strongest of these at this time is imitation. Consequently most of the teaching must take advantage of the imitative instinct. The first care should be to surround the child with the qualities we desire him to possess. The mother who scolds, gives way to temper, or is unwilling or unable to control her own emotions and acts can hope for little self-control in her child. In the same way the father who kicks the dog or lashes his horse or is hard and cold in his dealings with his family may expect only that his child will begin life by imitating his undesirable qualities. This necessary supervision of the child's environment is a strong argument for direct oversight of little children by the mother. It is often difficult even for her to keep an ideal example before the child; and if she leaves it to hired caretakers, they seldom realize its necessity or are willing to take the pains she would herself. Especially is this true of the young and ignorant girls who are often seen in sole charge of little children. This first step being merely passive education, it is not enough. We must not only set an example; we must go farther and strive to get from the child acts or attitudes of mind based upon these examples. Let us take first the quality of sympathy, which is closely allied to reflex imitation. It is difficult to say just when the child merely reflects the emotions of those about him and when he consciously thinks of others as having feelings like his own. This conscious thought is, of course, the foundation of real sympathy, and it comes early in the child's life--probably before the fourth year. [Illustration: Copyright by Underwood & Underwood Stories that broaden the child's conception of the lives and feelings of others are of value in training for sympathy] A little girl of three was greatly interested and pleased at the appearance of a roast chicken upon the family dinner table. She chattered about the "birdie" as she had done before on similar occasions. But when the carving knife was lifted over it, she astonished everyone by her terrified cry of "Don't cut the birdie. Hurt the birdie." No explanation or excuse satisfied her, and it was finally necessary to remove the platter and have the carving done out of her sight. Most children are naturally sympathetic _when they have experienced or can imagine_ the feelings of others. The cruelty of children, is usually due to their absorption in their own feelings without a _realization_ of the pain they inflict. Training for sympathy then must consist of enlargement of experience and cultivation of imagination. Some mothers do not talk enough with their children. They talk _to_ them--that is, they reprimand or direct them, but do not carry on conversations, as they might do greatly to the child's advantage. Telling stories is one of the most fruitful methods of training at this age. Even "this little pig went to market" has possibilities in the hands of a skillful mother. The bedtime story is a definite institution in many families. It deserves to be so in all. Beginning with the nursery rimes, the stories will gradually broaden in theme, and if their dramatic possibilities are at all realized by the story-teller, the children will broaden in their conception of the lives and feelings of others. Sympathy will thus in most cases be a plant of natural and easy growth. Intercourse with other children and with the older members of the child's family will also furnish constant material for the thoughtful mother. The baby bumps its head, and the mother soothes it with gentle, loving words. It is more than likely that the three-or four-year-old will express his sympathy also. Surely he will if the mother says, "Poor baby. See the great bump. How it must hurt!" Or perhaps "big sister" is happy on her birthday. Again, the three-year-old is likely to show happiness also, and the wise mother will help the child by a timely word to take the step from reflex imitation of happiness to true sympathy. Nor must we overlook the occasions when some one in the nursery has been "naughty" and must be punished. "Poor Bobby! He is sad because he cannot play with us this morning. He feels the way you did when you were naughty and had to sit so still in your little chair. I am sorry for Bobby--aren't you? We hope he will be good next time, don't we?" [Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros. Kindergarten games afford the intercourse with other children necessary to the child's development] Teaching self-control is quite a different matter from the foregoing, and one which requires infinitely more work and patience. The first step is, however, the same. If you would have sympathy, show sympathy. If you would have self-control in a child, control yourself. Remember the strength of the imitative instinct. Next, strive to obtain control in the young child in some small matter where control is easy. Any normal child will learn that control _pays_--_if you make it pay_. Encourage the hungry child to stop crying while you prepare his food, but prepare it quickly, or he will begin to cry again to make you hurry. Mothers usually work hard to teach control of bodily functions, but often far less to obtain control of mental and moral conditions. Obedience, considered from time immemorial the chief virtue of childhood, is really only of value as it conduces to self-control in later life. The wise parent, therefore, while requiring obedience for the convenience of the family and the safety of the child, will lay far more stress upon teaching the child to control himself. The work must be done almost entirely by indirect methods during the early years. Offering artificial rewards and dealing out artificial punishments are the crudest forms of encouraging effort. The natural reward and the inevitable natural punishment are far better when they can be employed. [Illustration: Courtesy of the United Charities of Chicago A group of children at the Mary Crane Nursery, Chicago. Children acquire self-control by learning to help themselves] The child who overcomes his tendency to play before or during his dressing may be rewarded by some special morning privilege which will automatically regulate itself. In our family it is the joyful task of bringing in and distributing the morning mail. The child not dressed "on time" necessarily loses the privilege. We are not punishing, but "we can't wait." Lack of control of temper presupposes solitude. "People can't have cross children about." Quarrels inevitably bring cessation of group play or work--solitude again. The child's love of approbation may also be made of great assistance. Always we must remember that doing _what we tell him to do_ is not after all the main thing. It is doing the right thing, being willing to do the right thing, and being able to hold back the impulse to do the wrong thing, that count. We are working "to train self-directed agents, not to make soldiers." Unselfishness is a plant of slow growth. Indeed it is properly not a childish trait at all, and the most we can probably get is its outward seeming. But it is important that we at least acquaint the child with ideals of unselfishness. We must find much in the child to appeal to, even though altruistic motives do not appear until much later than this. The love of approbation will prove a strong help again, also the sense of justice with which children seem endowed from the beginning. "Help him because he helped you," or "Give her some because she always gives you part of hers," is often effective. Just as in the case of self-control, the child will learn to overcome his innate selfishness "if it pays" to do so. It may seem wrong to encourage any but the highest motive, but a habit of unselfish acts, resting upon a desire to win the approbation of others, is a better foundation upon which to build than no foundation at all. Purely disinterested or altruistic motives do not appear in the normal child much before the age of adolescence, and by that time selfishness, which accords so well with the individualistic instincts of the child, will have hardened into a f