EDUCATION IN THE HOUSEHOLD
It is reported that a distinguished foreigner was once visiting a well-known woman’s college, and after listening to the explanation of the work carried on there, inquired of its president, “Pardon me, but how does this affect the chances of the young ladies?” Some years since several persons were speaking of the recent marriage of a college woman and the remark was made, “What a pity to have so fine an education wasted in keeping house!” Not long ago a college woman was discussing the education of women with a young German Ph.D., and found that her arguments in its favor were met by her opponent with the triumphant question, “But can these young women cook?”
These three incidents, which could be multiplied in kind indefinitely, are illustrations of the somewhat contradictory but current opinions regarding the mutual relationsof education and household affairs. It is apparently the common belief, first, that educated women never marry; second, that if they do marry, their education is wasted; third, that if such women marry and do not consider their education wasted in the household, the education received has at all events given evidence of nothing either useful or practical.
It is not surprising that the mental agility involved in reaching these somewhat diverse conclusions finds its parallel in the remedy usually proposed for alleviating so distressing a condition. If college women never marry, but find when they do marry that their education is wasted because they have not learned in college how to bake bread, then, it is argued, let us have compulsory teaching of domestic science in the public schools and send our daughters to private schools.
The beneficial results of the introduction of domestic science into the public schools would undoubtedly be very great, did anyone understand very clearly what is included under the head of domestic science, were any one at present prepared to teach it, and were it quite evident who should study it. At present these difficulties would seem to militate against the widespread introduction of this subject into our educational system.
If it is asked what is meant by domestic science, there is a temptation to make the irrelevant reply that historians, economists, political scientists, and sociologists are still attempting to delimit their respective fields, each claiming that its territory includes that preëmpted by the other three. It is as difficult to define the domain of domestic science as it is that of sociology. Does it include the architectural construction of a house? May it perhaps go back of the construction and include the selection of a site? Does it even involve the principles in the choice of a suitable residential city? Is it possible that behind this lies the question of selecting that state of the Union that ismost advantageous? If the problem is to be worked backwards, it must also be worked forwards, and it must be decided whether the interior decoration of a house comes within the jurisdiction of domestic science. Would this comprise instruction in wood-carving, pyrography, china painting, and basketry? But it seems reasonable to pass from the house itself to the activities carried on within it. Should these activities be separated into different classes, such as those pertaining to the care of the house, the preparation of food, the making of clothing, the physical care of children, the instruction of household helpers, the entertainment of guests, the training of husbands and wives? If this or any other classification is made, should domestic science consider one, all, or any combination of these classes?
But one of the tendencies of the time is toward intensive work, and the courses in domestic science should perhaps reflect that tendency. If so, should we not look forcourses to be offered in napkin embroidery, Hardanger work, and Mexican drawn work, in the preparation of wheatena, toast water, and flaxseed tea, in the making of cheese fondu, pineapple canapes, and ornamental frosting? Should not the mysteries of thin sauces, medium sauces, and thick sauces be elucidated? If on the other hand the opposite tendency is observable, should we not expect courses in the formal and informal entertainment of guests and the philosophy of a menu, even that of a bill of fare?
The difficulties of the situation are comparable only to those of the Bellman who
“Had only one notion for crossing the ocean,And that was to tingle his bell.He was thoughtful and grave—but the orders he gaveWere enough to bewilder a crew.When he cried ‘Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!’What on earth was the helmsman to do?”
“Had only one notion for crossing the ocean,And that was to tingle his bell.He was thoughtful and grave—but the orders he gaveWere enough to bewilder a crew.When he cried ‘Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!’What on earth was the helmsman to do?”
“Had only one notion for crossing the ocean,And that was to tingle his bell.He was thoughtful and grave—but the orders he gaveWere enough to bewilder a crew.When he cried ‘Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!’What on earth was the helmsman to do?”
“Had only one notion for crossing the ocean,
And that was to tingle his bell.
He was thoughtful and grave—but the orders he gave
Were enough to bewilder a crew.
When he cried ‘Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!’
What on earth was the helmsman to do?”
But granting that some agreement could be reached as to the content of the termdomestic science, there would still remain the question as to how instruction in it could be given. We have learned in nearly every other department of education the extreme difficulty of teaching what we do not know, but we still cling to the superstition that it is possible to teach domestic science in private and public schools when the university has not as yet made the household the subject of scientific or economic investigation. The one or two notable exceptions to this statement do not invalidate its general truth.
The reasons are manifold why the university does not as yet investigate the household, although every other field of human knowledge and activity has apparently been taken into its libraries, its laboratories, and its workshops; but undoubtedly one of the weightiest is the survival of the tradition that affairs of the household concern only women, that women work always through instinct and intuition, and therefore that the householdis not a suitable field for scientific investigation. But with the breaking down of the artificial barriers between the interests of men and of women, it is found that the affairs of the household do concern every member of it. Modern investigations in psychology are showing that the mental processes of women are precisely the same as those of men. It therefore remains for the university to recognize that the household is worthy of investigation. That there is scope for such an inquiry would seem evident from the curriculum of an excellent school of domestic science, selected from among hundreds of other illustrations that might be given. Course I in Domestic Science places in conjunction lectures on food adulteration, bacteriology, furniture, decorations, textiles, and housekeeping in other lands—an enumeration not saved even by alphabetical arrangement.
But not only is there difficulty in deciding what should be included under the head of domestic science and how instruction in itshould be given, but a third difficulty lies in deciding who should be instructed in the subject. If it is said that all young women should receive such instruction, we are confronted by the fact that the young woman trained for domesticity takes up stenography and occupies a hall bedroom, or becomes a commercial traveler and spends her life in hotels and on railway trains; the girl taught sewing and cooking in the public school goes into the shop or the factory; the young woman who frankly acknowledges her engagement spends the time prior to her marriage in preparing her trousseau and in embroidering her initials on her household linen. The young woman who has prepared herself for the profession of law or of medicine decides to marry and goes into business partnership with her husband. It would seem as if all plans for teaching household economics in the college or in the public school with reference to preparing young women for their future careers as housekeepers must be futile untilthe orbit of the matrimonial comet can be predicted.
Yet it must be recognized that college education has already done much for the household, and presumably for that somewhat vague field denominated “domestic science.”
The housekeeper finds herself in the same position as does the lawyer, the physician, and the clergyman. All are educated side by side throughout a college course. In a subsequent professional career, the lawyer forgets his Greek, the physician his history, and the clergyman his mathematics; but there remains with each one a precipitate of far more value than the original compound. The lawyer is no longer able to conjugate a verb inμι, but his Greek has given him an accuracy and precision of thought that, other things being equal, has placed him professionally far in advance of his untrained associates. The physician has forgotten the various steps in the development of cabinet governmentin England, but his history has left him a ready sympathy in dealing with men and a vision into their future that will long outlive his knowledge of the facts of history. The clergyman can no longer demonstrate Sturm’s theorem or Horner’s method, but his mathematics has given him a clearness of reasoning that renders him an invincible opponent in all battles for the right. In all these cases the residuum of facts remaining from a college education is comparatively small. Knowledge that is not constantly used passes out of mind, yet, like the food assimilated by the physical body, it serves its purpose in the mental strength and energy gained through it. Indeed, it may be said that information becomes more and more the dross, and education the pure metal remaining from a general school or college training.
The embryo lawyer, the physician, the clergyman, have throughout a college course been pursuing parallel courses of training; it has given them little that theycan make of immediate use in the office or the study, but it has laid the foundation for that special research necessary in every profession. The professional school builds on the training of the college, and it not only gives the information necessary in a professional career, but it opens the door to the vast field of investigation which it is one of the aims of every professional man to explore.
Thus the housekeeper, forgetting her Latin, Greek, and mathematics, her French, German, and history, her biology, astronomy and economics, retains as the most valuable heritage of her education a training in habits of accuracy, observation, good judgment, and self-control that enables her to be the master of any unexpected situation that may arise. From the beginning of school life until the close of the college course the conditions surrounding the young man and the young woman are similar. Each has the benefit of all the information and the general educationaltraining the college can give. To each alike the three great professions of law, medicine, and theology open their doors and invite special study and investigation. But if the young woman, turning her back on these attractive fields of work, desires to study the household in a similar professional way, she finds it aterra incognita. She realizes that absolutely nothing has been done in any educational institution toward investigating its past history, its present conditions, or its future needs. It is said in another field that every lawyer owes a debt of gratitude to his profession which can be paid only by some personal contribution to the sum of knowledge in his profession. One of his aims, therefore, as is that of every professional man, is to leave the world richer in his own field through the investigation of its unexplored parts. Thus law, medicine, and theology grow by virtue of the accumulated wisdom of those engaged in their pursuit. But the housekeeper finds that housekeeping asa profession has made no advances. It has not grown through the accumulated wisdom of past generations as have the so-called learned professions. Whatever advances it has made have come from impetus given it by other occupations through their own progress. Housekeeping affairs have been passive recipients of general progress, not active participants in it.
If, then, domestic science is to be made a subject of serious study and is to be accorded a permanent place in the school curriculum, if the household is to profit by the educational progress of the day, it can only be after the university has taken the initiative and has made all matters pertaining to the house and home a subject of scientific research.