Home IdealsThere is no noble life without a noble aim.The watchword of the future is the welfare and security of the child.Love of home and of what the home stands for converts the drudgery of daily routine into a high order of social service.The economy of right uses depends largely upon the home-maker, and brings the return in health, happiness, and efficiency.[14]
There is no noble life without a noble aim.
The watchword of the future is the welfare and security of the child.
Love of home and of what the home stands for converts the drudgery of daily routine into a high order of social service.
The economy of right uses depends largely upon the home-maker, and brings the return in health, happiness, and efficiency.[14]
FOOTNOTES:[11]Dr. Charles H. Chapin.[12]Mankind in the Making.[13]Dr. H. M. Eichholz, Inspector of Schools. Paper before Conference of Women Workers, London, 1904.[14]Motto, Mary Lowell Stone Home Economics Exhibit, Jamestown Exposition, 1907.
[11]Dr. Charles H. Chapin.
[11]Dr. Charles H. Chapin.
[12]Mankind in the Making.
[12]Mankind in the Making.
[13]Dr. H. M. Eichholz, Inspector of Schools. Paper before Conference of Women Workers, London, 1904.
[13]Dr. H. M. Eichholz, Inspector of Schools. Paper before Conference of Women Workers, London, 1904.
[14]Motto, Mary Lowell Stone Home Economics Exhibit, Jamestown Exposition, 1907.
[14]Motto, Mary Lowell Stone Home Economics Exhibit, Jamestown Exposition, 1907.
The child to be educated in the light of sanitary science. Office of the school. Domestic science for girls. Applied science. The duty of the higher education. Research needed.
No Christian and civilized community can afford to show a happy-go-luckylack of concern for the youth of today; for, if so, the community will have to pay a terrible penalty of financial burden and social degradation in the tomorrow.President Roosevelt, Message to Congress, December, 1904.
No Christian and civilized community can afford to show a happy-go-luckylack of concern for the youth of today; for, if so, the community will have to pay a terrible penalty of financial burden and social degradation in the tomorrow.
President Roosevelt, Message to Congress, December, 1904.
The loss of faith brings us by a short cut straight to the loss of purpose in life—of any purpose, at least, beyond purely material ones. To those who need money the duty of getting it first and above anything else becomes the gospel of life. To those who feel the need of position, whether in society, business, or elsewhere, their gospel drives them to all means within the law to attain that. To those who have both money and position comes the only remaining purpose in life—that of using them for an existence of amusement and enjoyment. Is it too much to say that never before in our history have such aspirations so completely dominated and limited such large classes?What is the poor American to do in his present fever and with his present nerves, but with fivefold greater powers placed in his hands and fivefold greater attention and capacity demanded for their control? If sixty years ago the free forces and rushing advance of the republic urgently needed the regulation of a powerful and learned conservative body, who can overestimate the necessity for such service now?When you ask how it is to be rendered, one cannot be mistaken in turning first to those priceless qualities in any sound national life whose tendency to decay we noted at the outset. Give back to us our faith. Give back to us a serious and worthy purpose. Restore sane views of life, of our own relations to it, and of our relations to those who share it with us.Whitelaw Reid, Phi Beta Kappa address, 1903.
The loss of faith brings us by a short cut straight to the loss of purpose in life—of any purpose, at least, beyond purely material ones. To those who need money the duty of getting it first and above anything else becomes the gospel of life. To those who feel the need of position, whether in society, business, or elsewhere, their gospel drives them to all means within the law to attain that. To those who have both money and position comes the only remaining purpose in life—that of using them for an existence of amusement and enjoyment. Is it too much to say that never before in our history have such aspirations so completely dominated and limited such large classes?
What is the poor American to do in his present fever and with his present nerves, but with fivefold greater powers placed in his hands and fivefold greater attention and capacity demanded for their control? If sixty years ago the free forces and rushing advance of the republic urgently needed the regulation of a powerful and learned conservative body, who can overestimate the necessity for such service now?
When you ask how it is to be rendered, one cannot be mistaken in turning first to those priceless qualities in any sound national life whose tendency to decay we noted at the outset. Give back to us our faith. Give back to us a serious and worthy purpose. Restore sane views of life, of our own relations to it, and of our relations to those who share it with us.
Whitelaw Reid, Phi Beta Kappa address, 1903.
Onemust not displace the other, for one cannot replace the other, but rather the home and the school must react on each other. The home is the place in which to gain the experience, and the school the place in which to acquire the knowledge that shall illuminate and crystallize the experience. The child should go out to the school with enthusiasm, and return to the home filled with a deeper interest and desire to realize things.
In morals and manners the school can only give tendency or direction to the child’s life. The school is not the best place to teach ethics. In the family life the child himself finds his future revealed, reflected by his relations to other members of the family. The spirit of coöperation nurtured there will develop in the school through the more various opportunities of relationship to others.
The earlier conditions cannot be restored, even the home training cannot be brought back, except on the farm, and there, it is hoped, it may be revived. The city or suburban children cannot have the opportunity to pick up chips when too young to bring in wood; cannot stand by and hold skeins of yarn, or go to the barn and help feed the calves—all most interesting and provocative of endless questions. They cannot go into the garden and pick berries or vegetables for dinner, cannot learn how to avoid breaking the vines, or how to judge the ripeness of the melons.
All that is probably not feasible for many, because it is not possible to give children of this age responsibility without oversight, and today’s elders are loath to give and are often incapable of giving oversight.
But while these circumstances over which, apparently, we have no control, preclude much of the valuable outdoor work, food has still to be prepared, dishes need washing, and clothes must be mended, even if towels and napkins are no longerhemmed by hand. Rooms are still swept and dusted, beds are made, and chairs and tables put straight. Has any better means of giving experience ever been devised than these small, daily tasks which differentiate men from animals? The care of the fixed habitation, the foresight needed to prepare the things for the family life in the weeks and months to come, the coöperation of all the members of the family toward one common end—all tend toward highhuman ideals. If the wise mother only realized the value to the child of helping in such portions as are not too heavy, of being a part of the life, she would let nothing stand in the way of using this natural means of development. But with foreign domestics whose idea is to get the various duties over as soon as possible, and whose gift is not that of teaching, how is the child to grow into the normal ways of right daily living, unconsciously and effectively?
If the parents continue to throw all the work of education on the school, then the school must take the best means of fulfilling the task.
Not only has the home put the burden of education on the school, but the school has drawn the child away from the home. The school of today demands much more from him than the school of the early New England days. It has taken the time that was formerly given to assisting in the duties of the household; it has taken from the home the interest and responsibility that were developed through the coöperation in the family life. School has taken the place of home in the child’s thoughts. In the morning the thought is of reaching school in time, not of the home duties whose performance could lighten many a mother’s burden.
The school, hurried with a curriculum that is wasteful of time and energy, lacking correlation in the studies (except in a few schools that are noted exceptions proving the rule), has little time to relate its work to the home as the kindergarten does in its morning talk; so there must come an intermediate step in order that the school may emphasize the home life and industries, and that a generation may grow up who shallhave a knowledge of the daily needs of life.
The interest awakened in the school will surely react upon the home. It is like an expedition going out to make discoveries and to bring back knowledge to its own land. The directive work of the school will thus become a practical realization in the home. Then the cycle will be complete, for while the school has separated the child from his natural environment for many hours and weeks, it is sending him back better equipped through knowledge and experience to fulfill his place there.
How shall the ends be gained artificially by devices of the school? For gained they must be, if civilization is to be maintained.
To quote from Isabel Bevier:
“As the home is so inseparably connected with the house, and our comfort and efficiency are so greatly influenced by the kind of houses in which we live, much of interest and importance centers in the study of the house.”
Moreover, with the house, its evolution, decoration, and care, may be associated muchthat is interesting in history, art, and architecture, as well as much that has a direct bearing on the daily life of the individual.
The philosophers have struggled for centuries, each contributing according to his experience and vision to determine what is the purpose of life. America’s thought could be translated into the word efficiency. Yes, we might almost say she worships efficiency. If, then, efficiency is to be the goal, what are the means to develop it? Efficiency depends chiefly upon good health, and to maintain this we must first consider in the scheme of education the physical aids—food, air, water, clothing and shelter, exercise and rest—and with this goal in view must come also recreation, play or amusement, and beauty to develop the mental and the spiritual. In relating our scheme of work to this ideal we will consider first the shelter.
The children of ten or twelve years of age have passed the “make-believe” stage of play; they want the “real,” but of their own kind and age. After little children have made and played with toys and foreshadowedthe needs of the actual home, the time has come for the youth to have his demands, which are not yet the demands of man and manhood.
At the Tuberculosis Congress, held in Washington in 1908, a sanatorium in England, which won a prize, presented among many good features a system of graded work with graded tools, almost childlike implements for the weak and unskilled, gradually advancing toward the normal as the strength and health of the man grew. So it should be with the material we should give to the children.
After the toy age a house about two-thirds the ordinary sized house may be constructed. A room seven feet square is very livable for a child. Three rooms is a very good working plant—the kitchen and the bedroom, the dining and living room combined. Both boys and girls may coöperate in planning, building, and furnishing this home.
The plan of a modern house may be drawn, basing it on the knowledge of house architecture through history, of the modificationnecessary to site through geography, and the knowledge that science has brought of drainage, ventilation, and construction. The house could be built by the manual training class, or if that is not feasible it may be built by one of the firms making portable houses. At all events, it can be painted by the children, and this will lead to lessons on color, the use of paint and its composition.
While the “shelter” is being constructed the child must be considering at the same time the principles of caring for the home, for this would naturally influence the thought of furnishing. The simply furnished home means less physical exertion, but not less beauty. The home planned and executed on scientific principles of hygiene and sanitation means a healthful home, a much cleaner home.
The shelter of the individual has been considered; now comes the immediate protection of the child—its clothing. It would not be quite practical in this little home to enter into the personal activities of bathing and dressing. A very large doll, approximatingthe child, may be used, one large enough so that it can wear boots, stockings, etc., that are usually bought for the real child. Here can be taught also the lesson in wise spending.
The right care of the body must be included among the necessities of education. The teaching of the principles of hygiene should be closely related to the lives of the children. Correct habits, not rules, are the proper prevention for all sorts of defects. To secure and maintain a healthy body, habits of cleanliness and enthusiasm for health must be inculcated. Such habits can be readily impressed on the body while it is plastic—that is, while it is young; but they are acquired only with difficulty and by much thought in after years. Hence there is the greatest economy of time and energy in accustoming young people to habits of daily living which will give them the best chance in after life—the chance to be “healthy, happy, efficient human beings.” Most of the teaching must be by indirect methods—illustrations—and so the doll may be used again to demonstrate and relate facts about the daily life.
An old Scotch writer once said, “He that would be good must be happy, and he that would be happy must be healthy.” As has already been said, the great increase of disease from causes under individual control, such as that which is brought on by errors of diet, points to a need for a more general education in this respect. The food problem is fundamental to the welfare of the race. Society, to protect itself, must take cognizance of the questions of food and nutrition. It is necessary to give the child the right ideas on these subjects, for only then will there be sufficient effort to get the right kind of food and to have it clean. Right living goes further and demands the right manner of serving and eating the food. The home table should be the school of good manners and of good food habits of which the child ought not to be deprived.
If all the foregoing principles have been developed, if the child has been led to see the joy of living through these home activities, he will consider the home the true shelter, the place where he can have the happiest play, the easiest rest, where he canstudy most earnestly, and express himself most honestly.
And the parents, the fathers and mothers of children of the city? How far are we helping the city dwellers to take advantage of city life? The principles back of housekeeping are the same, the end the same—what are to be the means to stimulate the modern home-maker? Show the possibilities within reach of them; send the children home with ideas which the mother must consider.
Education in pursuing the so-called “humanities” has been holding up to view a hypothetical man in a hypothetical environment.
The pursuit of gold has not been hindered thereby, and has gone on without the restraints of education because of the complete detachment of ideals inculcated from the actual daily life where money meant personal pleasure and comfort for the time being.
The power over things gained by a few students was utilized by money power to hasten all progress. Speed was the watchword.No one could stop to see what injury he had caused. “Get there,” really seemed to be the motto. In this scramble for power the “purpose” for which life is lived has been lost sight of. No “worthy aim” has been impressed on the mind of the child.
An awakening has come and the school is the leading factor in the upward movement. Education is coming to have a new meaning, or better, perhaps, is going back to the older meaning with new materials. No knowledge or power the youth may acquire will avail in real struggle for existence of the race without a definite aim to hold steady the eye fixed on a certain goal. This is a law of man’s existence.
The change in point of view has been growing like a root underground. It seems to have suddenly sent up shoots in every direction. In no line of thought has this change come more generally than in relation to the things youth should be taught. Himself and his relation to his environment are now to the front. Instead of extolling man as the lord of all created things, the youth is made to see that man unaidedby scientific knowledge is at the mercy of Nature’s forces; that man in crowds is sure to succumb unless he makes a strong effort to keep himself erect.
Hence the boys are given manual training—power over wood and stone, steam and electricity; and are taught the principles of production of food and metals. The girls are being taught to distinguish values in textiles and food stuffs; to manage finances and to keep houses in a sanitary manner.
It is the business of the higher education at once to apply the knowledge of preventive measures to its own students and through them to reach the people, but it has been very slow to take up the cause of better environment.
In colleges there is still more emphasis laid on external works, such as water supply, drainage, etc., than on the more intimate hourly needs of fresh air and clean rooms. The halls, study rooms, and dining rooms of colleges are notoriously ill ventilated and not over clean.
The senses are blunted at an age whenthey should be keenly sensitive. It is only within ten years or so that very many of the higher schools have made a point of indoor sanitation beyond plumbing provisions. Outdoor sports have been relied upon to give sufficient impetus to the health side of education.
A new element has come into the State universities through the Home Economics courses, which have been steadily growing in favor during the last two decades. Within that time several buildings have been erected and equipped to teach the principles of sanitary and economic living both in institution, school, and family life.
Probably no one movement has been so powerful as this in convincing educators of the efficiency of trained women as factors in sanitary progress. In no other direction is the outlook for social service greater. The woman must, however, be more than a willing worker; she must be educated in science as a foundation for sanitary work.
Within the next few years the demand for trained women is sure far to exceed the supply, for the fundamental sciences are not to be acquired in one or two years.
Young college women are even now realizing their mistake in neglecting the sciences. They assumed that science was not of practical use. They assumed that educational curricula were stable and would go on in the same lines forever.
The high school is now fully awake to these vital factors. Some of the best buildings in the United States are the high school buildings, those of the West excelling those of the East. By 1911 nearly every school will have a course in Sanitary Science. It may be under the name of Home Economics, or of Camp Cookery, or of House Building, but the idea of better physical environment has already taken root. In the extension of school work by the employment of the school visitor to supplement the work of the teacher in the grade schools, in Parents’ Associations, in Mothers’ Clubs, in social endeavors on every side, there is coming the study of more special branches of sanitary science, clean air, clean floors, clean clothes—where once cooking lessons were the extent to which the workers could lead.
Evolution has at last been accepted as applying to man as well as to animals. In his inaugural address, November, 1909, President H. J. Waters, of Kansas Agricultural College, said: “... for every dollar that goes into the fitting of a show herd of cattle or hogs, or into experiments in feeding domestic animals, there should be a like sum available for fundamental research in feeding men for the greatest efficiency.... We have millions for research in the realm of domestic animals and nothing for the application of science to the rearing of children.”
Evidence is not wanting that all this is to be speedily changed. Man has awakened to the fact that he is “the sickest beast alive” and that he has himself to blame, and, moreover, that it is within his power to change his condition and that speedily.
After all, human life and effort are governed largely by the conscious or unconscious value put upon the varied elements that go to make up the daily round.
It seems to be a universal law that effort must precede satisfaction, from theinfant feeding to the man building up a successful business. The satisfaction grows in a measure as the effort was a prolonged or sustained one.
Well-being is a product of effort and resulting satisfaction. The child without interest in work or play does not develop; the man with no stimulus walks through life as in a dream.
The first steps in “civilizing” (?) a nation or tribe are to suggestwants—things to strive for. Struggle, with all its attendant evils, seems the lever that moves the world. It is therefore in line that health, and whatever favors it, is to be gained at the expense of struggle. The one necessary element is that men should value it enough to struggle for it.
Sanitary science above all others, when applied, benefits the whole people, raises the level of productive life.
In the rapid development of our civilization, the laboratory, the shop, the school can be the quickest mediums of suggesting wants.
In an earlier chapter, the indifference toclean conditions, the ignorance of the means of obtaining pure food and clean air, were dwelt upon, and still later the need ofwillto choose the right thing.
Now we should consider the means of stimulating that choice. So far it has been chiefly exploitation for the personal gain of the manufacturer, who has persuaded the people to buy his product regardless of its economic or hygienic effect. Thrift has been undermined most subtly.
“That’s the secret of the whole situation we’re talking about; it’s easier to buy a new shirt than to take care of the one you’ve got.”[15]
All sense of values has been lost, so that with no sound basis choice is apt to be unwise, unsatisfactory, and is gradually dropped, while the individual drifts.
No more effective agent for the dissemination of knowledge was ever devised than the American Public School. If only it would live up to its opportunities, its teachers could bring to its millions of receptive minds the best practice in daily living(never mind the theory for the children), and through the children reach the home, where the infants may be saved from the risks that the elders have run.
To be effective, however, school conditions should be satisfactory, and teachers should be familiar with the best ways of living, or at least in active sympathy with the medical inspector and the school nurse.
No more revolting revelations have ever been made than those usually locked in the hearts of these faithful servants of the people. How they can have courage to go on in face of parental and community indifference is a marvel. We shall consider in the next chapter how the average parent is to be aroused.
But the leaders in educational and scientific thought—what of them? The school is the pride of the community and measures the progress of the community toward ideals. Alas, how is pride laid low in most public school buildings in the inability of most of the teachers to see the relations between mental stupidity and bad air.
The awakening has begun, however,and thousands of teachers have responded and are urging authorities to burn more coal, to employ more help, to keep the house clean, to make it more beautiful, to make the curriculum more helpful, to make provision for good food to be purchased, and the hundred ways in which the school may be the most powerful civilizing factor the nation has.But civilization must not spell disease and ruin.
The economic factor must not be lost sight of. To tell the boy and girl that they are as good as any does not give them the right to the most expensive food and clothing they see. How shall they choose wisely in the multitude of new things? They wish the best, naturally, and all America is honeycombed with the wrong idea that the best costs the most. An Alaska Indian came into the store in Juneau one day to buy some canned peas. The storekeeper said, “I am out of the brand you want.” “No peas?” asked the Indian. “No, only some small cans of French peas at forty cents a can. You don’t want those.” “Why not? Me want the best.”
The schools of domestic economy, the classes in all grade schools, will have to attack and conquer these prejudices as to values, or, rather, will need to substitute right estimates of value before our people will choose wisely in distributing their income, for that is what right living means. The division of the income according to the necessities of health and efficiency, not according to whim or selfish desire, is sometimes estimated as
This leaves only forty-five or thirty per cent for other things, and the pennies must be carefully counted to cover fuel, light, amusements, education, books, insurance, or investments. Something that the family would like must be left out—no matter what, providing only it does not injure their efficiency as wage-earners, as comfortable human beings.
The sensation of comfort or satisfaction is so completely a psychic factor that the school training has a great chance to affectafter life. The child can acquire the habit of being more comfortable in plain, washable, clean clothes, with clean hands, than in dirty, ragged furbelows. This habit once thoroughly acquired is not likely to be quickly lost. Provision for clean hands is a necessity in school, and ways of making a small amount of soap and water serve may also be taught. All the while, care is to be taken not to introduce unnecessarily expensive materials or to inculcate over-refined notions.
Sound instruction as to dangers of transference of saliva, of nose discharge, etc., can be given without also giving the despair of impossible achievement.
The teaching in the classes must have this practical bearing on daily life. It is insisted on here because unclean hands are the chief source of infectious disease.
Instead of blaming water supplies, dusty streets, or even contagion by the breath, sanitarians are everywhere putting emphasis upon the actual contact of moist mucus with milk and other food, in preparation or in serving. It is not a supercilious notionto examine tumblers for finger marks, or to object to the habit of wetting the finger with saliva in turning leaves of books. These little unclean acts are the unconscious habits that cling to a person in spite of education from reading. The greatest service to be done today in improving the health of the community is in the application of the principles which may be summed up in the phrases—fresh air all the twenty-four hours, clean hands the livelong day, the free use of the handkerchief to protect from contamination of mouth and nose.
All these small personal habits should be taught in the earliest months of life,i. e., in the home; but if the child reaches school untaught, then in defense of the whole community the school must insist upon teaching them.
FOOTNOTES:[15]Meredith Nicholson, Lords of High Decision, p. 133.
[15]Meredith Nicholson, Lords of High Decision, p. 133.
[15]Meredith Nicholson, Lords of High Decision, p. 133.
Stimulative education for adults. Books, newspapers, lectures, working models, museums, exhibits, moving pictures.
The efficient sanitarian is not so great when he conquers a ragingepidemic as when he prevents an epidemic that might have raged but for his preventive care, and for this result his most continuous and effectual work is to educate—educate—educate.Wm. H. Brewer, New Haven Health Association, 1905.
The efficient sanitarian is not so great when he conquers a ragingepidemic as when he prevents an epidemic that might have raged but for his preventive care, and for this result his most continuous and effectual work is to educate—educate—educate.
Wm. H. Brewer, New Haven Health Association, 1905.
The essential fact in man’s history to my sense is the slow unfolding of a sense of community with his kind, of the possibilities of coöperation leading to scarce-dreamt-of collective powers, of a synthesis of the species, of the development of a common general idea, a common general purpose out of a present confusion.H. G. Wells, First and Last Things.
The essential fact in man’s history to my sense is the slow unfolding of a sense of community with his kind, of the possibilities of coöperation leading to scarce-dreamt-of collective powers, of a synthesis of the species, of the development of a common general idea, a common general purpose out of a present confusion.
H. G. Wells, First and Last Things.
The great mass of the population is, indeed, at the present time like clay which has hitherto been a mere deadening influence underneath, but which this educational process, like some drying and heating influence upon that clay, is rendering resonant.H. G. Wells, New Worlds for Old.
The great mass of the population is, indeed, at the present time like clay which has hitherto been a mere deadening influence underneath, but which this educational process, like some drying and heating influence upon that clay, is rendering resonant.
H. G. Wells, New Worlds for Old.
In a store an advertisement reads: “Any kind of tea you prefer; no charge whatever.”
In a store an advertisement reads: “Any kind of tea you prefer; no charge whatever.”
She: “The women look so tired when they come in, and in ten minutes they are so rested and refreshed.”He: “Ready to go home?”She: “Why, no—ready to do some more shopping.”Spectator, The Outlook, December 18, 1909.
She: “The women look so tired when they come in, and in ten minutes they are so rested and refreshed.”
He: “Ready to go home?”
She: “Why, no—ready to do some more shopping.”
Spectator, The Outlook, December 18, 1909.
Somethingin motion and something to eat attract the crowd.
The social worker is just beginning to realize what the manufacturer and the department storekeeper have long since found out.
Why is it not legitimate to “attract a crowd,” to do them a good service in showing them how to save money as well as in impelling them to spend it? It is wiser toshow howbefore explaining why.
The force of example, the power of suggestion, should be used fully before coercion is applied. Exhibits and models come before law.
The psychology of influence is an interestingstudy (see Münsterberg’s article,McClure’s, November, 1909). Its principles have been grasped and used by those who exploit human feelings for their own gain. The student of social conditions should make a wider and better use of a real force.
Publicity is perhaps first. Exhibits showing existing conditions often shock people into attention, for it is inattention more than anything else that prevent betterment.
It is said that “a knowledge of danger is the surest means of guarding against it,” but this knowledge must be translated into belief and the danger be brought home to the individual as a member of the community.
Exhibits may often suggest for existing evils simple remedies never thought of before. They should never suggest the one idea without the other. Even though the remedy is not worked out, it should be called for. America’s inventive power may well be turned on its own social affairs as well as on adaptation of European machinery.
The man considered in these pages is the man in community environment, and the discussion is as to what controls this community life. It will be acknowledged by all thoughtful persons that the prime control lies in the purpose for which the community exists. If for selfish gain, then all is sacrificed to that end. Men and women become mere machines and children are only in the way until they, too, may be put into the service.
If it exists for mutual help and general advance in civilization, then the leaders in the community take into account the elements that contribute to the future as well as those for the immediate present.
In the confusion of ideas resulting from the rapid, almost cancerous growth of the modern community, made possible by mechanical invention, the people have lost the power of visualizing their conception of right and wrong, a power which made the Puritan such a force in early colonial times. Heaven and hell were very real to him and were powerful factors in influencing his daily life. The average man today has nosuch spur to good behavior. Perhaps the sword of Damocles must be visualized by such exhibits as the going out of an electric light every time a man dies, by the ghastly microbe in the moving picture, by the highly colored print or by a vivid reproduction of crowded quarters. The social worker has been doubtful of the real value of such exhibits, but such reminders have their place in a community accustomed to the advertising of less worthy subjects.
A decided recognition of the value of exhibits is found in the advertisement of a company: “We design and equip Exhibits on Tuberculosis, Milk, Civic Betterment, Dental Hygiene, Saner Fourth of July. Have you our catalogue?” Much of our educational work for the dissemination of useful knowledge would gain in power and directness from an adaptation of the methods of the man skilled in promoting commercial interests. He knows how to apply the right stimulus at the right time in order to arouse the desired interest.
In many ways the adult is but the child of a larger growth, who needs somethingconcrete to make him understand. And so have grown up the great industrial fairs and exhibitions. One comes away from these wondering that so much, both good and bad, is being prepared for him, and stimulated, usually, to work out certain suggestions and better many of the present conditions. Both the manufacturer and the consumer have been helped.
Wherever it is possible, a working model illustrating the chief features to be explained should be installed. The expense of this kind of exhibit has in the past been prohibitive, and moreover the use of such “claptrap” has been frowned upon; but scientific knowledge is no longer to be held within the aristocratic circle of the university. It is to be brought within the reach of the man in the street, and to make up for the wasted years of seclusion experts now vie with each other in putting cause and effect not merely into words but into pictures, and even into motion pictures. The fly as a carrier of disease is now shown in all its busy and disgusting activity. The lesson of awakened attention by such meansis being learned, and soon lessons in botany, in gardening, in housewifery, will be given through the eye, to be the better followed by the hand.
Of all means, that product of man’s ingenuity, the moving picture, is destined to play the greatest part in quick education. It is the quintessence of democracy.
The extension movement in education is an evidence of a new social ideal. It is a true expression of democracy that the university and school can be utilized by the busy working people. Museums that at one time were only for the educated who by previous training could understand them now assume as a privilege the educating of all the people. Schools of art and science, also, through lectures, bulletins, guides, and special exhibits, extend a generous welcome to the public.
The citizens ought to be a gladder, sadder people, stirred and delighted and grateful for much that the city affords; sad and shocked by some of the forbidding, existing conditions. That is the power of an exhibit, so to visualize a condition that the mindreally conceives it, never again to recover from the shock, to be unmindful of such possibilities of degraded existence for human beings.
The influence of these great expositions is of a most subtle kind, not often to be traced, but there is a noticeable change in the estimation in which Home Economics is held dating from the time of the Mary Lowell Stone Home Economics Exhibit held at the Exposition in St. Louis in 1905. This illustrated the application of modern knowledge to home life, chiefly in economic and æsthetic lines, all bearing upon the health and efficiency of the people. The Chicago Exposition in 1893 had its Rumford Kitchen, an exhibit under the auspices of the State of Massachusetts. This practical illustration of scientific principles modified the ideas of the world as to the place and importance of cookery in education. Indeed, there seemed a distinct danger that other lines would be neglected, so that when the Exposition at St. Louis was determined upon this legacy of fifteen years before was drawn upon to show the wide scope of the subject as it had been developed.
Boards of Health might pave the way for a better understanding of their rules and regulations if they would have temporary exhibits in public places of some of the conditions known to them but unsuspected by the average citizen and taxpayer.
Traveling exhibits may show local and temporary conditions and may call attention to needs demanding immediate remedy—with the remedy suggested.
Permanent exhibits in museums should, on the other hand, teach a deeper lesson. They should always be constructive and should be replaced when the conditions have changed. The modern idea of a museum is a series of adjustable exhibits with distinct suggestive purpose. Such are found in the Town Room, 3 Joy Street, Boston, the Social Museum, Harvard College, the American Museum of Safety, and the Sanitary Science Section, American Museum of Natural History, New York.
The distribution of the printed word has become so universal that it would seem as if every family might be influenced by it; but the scientific title, or the size of thebook, or the scientific terms seem forbidding, and so the whole question is thrust aside.
In the past, newspaper science was largely discounted as sensational and only one-tenth fact. Scientific workers were largely to blame for this. They could not take the time to explain the meaning of their work, and the few things they were ready to say were worked over out of all semblance to truth by the writer who must have a “story” and who had not the training in “suspension of judgment” which the scientific investigator knows to be necessary.
There is no concern of human life that cannot be made interesting, and the magazine writers of today understand that art. Read the newspaper and the world is yours. It is all things to all men. The popularizing of knowledge is now proceeding on somewhat better lines. Intermediaries between the laboratory and the people are springing up to interpret the one to the other. This work is good or bad according to the individual writer. Most of it is still too superficial. Here is one of the mostfertile fields for the educated woman, since the evils of which we complain have to do so intimately with woman’s province, the home and the school. There is hope that the trained, scientific woman will take her place as interpreter. Her practical sense will give her an advantage over the young man who has never known other home than a boarding house.
But the expert knows that the man of “practical affairs” wants and needs certain knowledge, and so seeks another way. Our Federal government, through the departments of Agriculture and Education; the State Boards of Health; the educational institutions, have with care and accuracy formulated this knowledge and are sending to the people, in the form of bulletins meeting their interest and requirements, knowledge in concise and readable form, and so most valuable. More than five hundred thousand copies of Miss Maria Parloa’s bulletin on Preserving have been distributed by the Department of Agriculture.
These efforts by both men and women have meant independent scientific research,which is often the only available knowledge for the housekeeper. It is bringing to them in their “business” of life the same help that the men on the farm and elsewhere are receiving in theirs.
But the written word, however clearly put, can never reach the untrained as can the voice and personality of an earnest speaker with a compelling vitality. Lectures by those who have been engaged in research themselves, so that they have absorbed the spirit of the laboratory—not by those who have merely smelled the odors of the waste jars—are ten times more valuable than even the most attractively illustrated articles. It is well that the personality of the human being is an asset, and that there is a stimulus in hearing and seeing the person who has accomplished things. There is always a power in the spoken word. The government, with its public lectures, recognizes this as well as the private organization, and today ignorance is necessarily due only to indifference.
Illustrated lectures followed by literature are of inestimable value if rightly andnot sensationally given. Even then, the seed must have time to sprout.
Man has reached his present stage of civilization, however we regard it, by an incessant warfare against adverse conditions. Enemies, man and beast, surrounded him; mountains and rivers obstructed his passage; fire and flood swept away his dwellings; but ever onward the inward impulse has carried him.
It is interesting to see how the same vocabulary is transferred to the warfare for social betterment, “campaign,” “warfare,” “battle,” “fight,” “weapon,” “corps,” “army.” And the fight to be won can only come through knowledge, its dissemination and then its application.
Publicity today means coöperation and democracy—all to help, all to be helped.
All the foregoing methods should be used in these campaigns for health, with the dictum, “Man, know thyself.”
Both child and adult to be protected from their own ignorance. Educative value of law and of fines for disobedience. Compulsory sanitation by municipal, state, and federal regulations. Instructive inspection.