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 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.