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Show THE HOME, DOMESTIC SCIENCE. This Department is Edited by Miss Hazel Love of the Agricultural Agricul-tural College. Home Economics. An address delivered by Mrs. Virginia Vir-ginia C. Meredith before a Farmers' Institute: It is a great pleasure to attend the Farmers' Institute, and it was with the greatest sclfrcstraint that I refrained re-frained this morning from attending the meeting of the stock brcccTcrs. That is where my heart is, as I am a breeder of livestock, but nearer to my heart is the subject of the horn?, especially the farm home. The glory of the United States is its detached homo, a home wherein each family may pursue its own ideals. A new thought is finding lodgment in the minds of earnest people, a new thought about the home itself, and especially es-pecially about the preparation or training that ought to be given tj women who organize and maintain homes. The home is the most expensive ex-pensive institution in existence, and we have a right to expect, a right to demand much of it before wc justify its existence. It would be far cheaper cheap-er for people to live in communities of ioo or iooo, as they do in asylums, where one buyer of food, furniture and clothing could have the advantages of wholesale rates; where one cook could cook large quantities of food with one fire, where many rooms .could be heated from a central plant. This would be the cheap plan, but it is not the economical plan if wc have in view the rearing of fine men and useful use-ful women. "The home exists," says Mrs. Richards, "for the protection of child life." And indeed nothing less than the opportunity it offers for the right development of the child (which is the hope of the race) will justify the expensive institution wc name home. Any discussion of the subject of home economics ,t, in my opinion, opin-ion, rest upon four propositions, which in some degree define the subject: sub-ject: First. Home is a place and an op-pcrtunity op-pcrtunity for the right development of the physical and spiritual natures. Socond The organization and main tenance of a home. is primarily and perpetually a personal enterprise; that is, its nature is such that homos can not be organized successfully by syndicates. syn-dicates. Third Housekeeping and home-making home-making arc so intimately rclatod that they can scarcely be separated, and together they form a business more important than, and probably as difficult dif-ficult as any business known to modern mod-ern times. Fourth The one who would carry on this important and difficult business busi-ness deserves and should demand adequate ade-quate preparation, training and education edu-cation for this special business. It has been said that nita-sculinc economics uses men to the end of creating great wealth, while the feminine femi-nine economics uses wealth to tin end of creating great men. It is undoubtedly un-doubtedly true that men earn money and women spend it. Who will s.iy which is the more difficult achievement achieve-ment from the economic standpoint? I use the word economic as meaning wise use. Men have been and arc be- . ing helped in every way possible, to cam the dollar. Science, invention, system, have been wisely used; tech nicial schools in medicine, engineering, engineer-ing, bookkeeping, and everything clsi under the sun help the man to use his powers wisely in earning the dollar. dol-lar. The value of the dollar which the man cams is determined by the intelligence of the woman who spends thrt dollar. What education or training train-ing is given the woman to enable her to spend the dollar wisely, economically? economic-ally? With the exception of a very, very small per cent that constitute the "savings," all the dollars direct' earned in these United Staix today arc spent in and for the homes of our country. One may say: "Yes, but women do not make the expenditure." Some thought will modify that assertion. asser-tion. It is the woman's intelligence, her knowledge, taste, ambition, that largely determine the scale of living in her family; if she decides to have hot biscuit seven days in the weak, - the expenditure for flour, lard, baking powder, fuel, will represent a. sum quite different than if she Gleets to have yeast broad. Her knowladgo of bread-making will modify the cost f living, for it will mean porhaps 20 per ' I tent uneaten and consigned as scrap.? to the garbage pail. Much the same is true of her intelligence in choosing fabrics that arc durable. Every household house-hold must have table and bed linen, clothing and5 carpets. The woman buys, that is, chooses, these things, and her intelligence determines the value Of the purchase. Each one may pursue the "subject closely in all its avenues end court back at last to assent as-sent to the proposition that the intelligence intel-ligence of the woman who spends it determines the value of the dollar which the man has earned. With this truth, then, acknowledged, acknowl-edged, what arc you doing to educate your daughter for her responsibility in maintaining a home that shall be a place and an opportunity for the right development of the physical and spiritual nature? A place where a dollar shall buy opportunities for culture cul-ture as well as suitable Pood and shelter? A place where a dollar shall have its very greatest value secured? It is a mistake to think that all thought of money is sordid; rather, is it not true that right thinking about the use of money involves the best kind of sentim'ent? The licT?c fitfr'sccuring an c'ducntion for tire daughter along the lines of home economics will find its earliest realization, T think, in the agricultural college. There is a wonderful likeness like-ness between the education suited for the farmer and that suited for the home-maker. It has taken a long time to formulate a course of study tjiat combines in a. rational way the Iftory and practice of agriculture. The men who have already mustered tlhis iproblcm arc the ones who can master the newer ones. They can nVect the prejudices' that always assail a new departure. Those who said that the farmer can teach his son to plow arc the first to say that the mother can teach her daughter to QOok, Little help and .great hindrance must bo expected from those who Qiitcrtain such poverty-stricken conceptions con-ceptions of farming as to believe that flowing is the 'entire business, or such noverty-striaken conceptions of home as t think that cooking constitutes uq importance. These two difficult Subjects, agriculture and home-making, can be most successfully taught by trained teachers. You send your Son to school to be taught to read, not because you do not yourself J know how to road, but because you i . ; arc carrying on an absorbing business and rightly think a trained' teacher can give your boy the very best instruction. in-struction. The mother who is keeping keep-ing house and making a home is fully occupied and can not undertake the orderly teaching of home economics, and moreover, morc's the pity, there arc many, many mothers who arc themselves untaught. I believe that home economy can be taught along with the other studies stud-ies in the schools if wc had the right kind of teachers. Take for example, in physiology the student learns a great many things and among these things it learns that the skin is an organ of excretion. Now -what docs that determine in relation to the home? In the first place it determines deter-mines that a bath once in a. while is a good thing. It determines also that one should not wear at night any clothing worn during the day. It determines de-termines also that the bed room must be well ventilated. When wc are asleep as-leep wc can not change (conditions, The system is relaxed and so the matter of sleep comes into consideration. considera-tion. What is sleep? Who can say what it is? Wc used to think-it a physical excreta?, because the body was tired. The heart and lungs work constantly and the lazy man sleeps longer than anybody else. So, therefore, there-fore, wc got new ideas about sleep. Thcrcr arc those who say sleep is a spiritual exercise. That wc must rc-'tirc rc-'tirc from the wicked world for one-third one-third of the time in order that the spirit may be renewed. The mind and the body is the first thing hurt when one does not sleep. So all this comes back to th'o one fact in physiology. Did the teacher in physiology follow it up? Certainly not, but following its application and use in home life wc shall find it a very pertinent in-fiuence in-fiuence in the every day things. I think the fact determines a great deal more. I think it determines the kind of 41 house wc arc going to live in if this body, this skin, is an organ of excretion. We want to air our bed in the sunlight and are going to have a dainty homie full of untainted air. One ought not to be discouraged when wc think how 25 or 50 years ago that all education was classical and because so much now is scientific. Wc should pot despair about having the every day things brought into instruction. The whole value of science is its application ap-plication to affairs of every day life. And why not bring it right "Into the home. I also think with a great deal of pleasure of something I read of Kate Douglass Wiggin in which she speaks of the violin and! says that the violin is made of wood maple or other selected se-lected wood so much from the sunny sun-ny side of the tree and so much towards to-wards the heart of the tree. The wood that has heard the singing of the birds, the rustic of the leaves, the music of the insect and all the sweet things of nature. After selecting It it is put in water in a stream that gurgles and ripples aroundl and then the man who lies selected it puts the wood away to lay for more than t hundred years when another makes the violin, and with bits of ivory and metal fashions an instrument and calls it good. And yet so carefully fashioned fash-ioned this violin is nothing unless touched by a master hand. Wc make a home of the material things come into. the house, and yet there is something some-thing more. The home is the place for physical development nd also the place for spiritual development. Rus-kin Rus-kin says: In the ipathway of every good woman flowers spring up. They spring up behind her, not before her. You remember the words on the ffisefiplion at the dfaBFWBSii I tioni To the brayo mcif who amid ptfrll discovered this country. To the H brave women who in solitude, amid strange things made home. Strange H perils, strange dangers, heavy toil H made their home. Now no home can H Ijc made without the deepest study, H and if wc would have things better, if H wc would! lia.vc more homc9 that arc H a place and opportunity for the right H development of the physical and H spiritual nature, wc should learn to fit H our women well for such a great ca- 'V recr as home-making. H |