Euthenics, the science of controllable environment / A plea for better living conditions as a first step toward higher human efficiency

by Ellen H. Richards

THE HOME AND THE SCHOOL

One must 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 longer hemmed 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 high human 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 shall have 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 much that 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 foreshadowed the 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 modification necessary 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, approximating the 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 can study 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 unaided by 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 when they 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 the infant 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 suggest wants—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 to clean conditions, the ignorance of the means of obtaining pure food and clean air, were dwelt upon, and still later the need of will to 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

20 to 25 per cent for rent

25 to 30 per cent for food

10 to 15 per cent for clothing

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 affect after 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 notion to 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.