If country women are to develop a conscious sense of responsibility in country-life betterment, education facilities must be afforded them. The schools must recognize home-making subjects equally with other subjects. What becomes a part of the school eventually becomes a part of the life of the people of the region.
The leadership in such subjects is now being taken by the colleges of agriculture. This is not because domestic subjects belong in a college of agriculture more than elsewhere, but only that these colleges see the problem, and most general colleges or universities have not seen it. The college of agriculture, if it is highly developed, represents a civilization rather than a series of subjects; and it cannot omit the home-making phase if it meets its obligation to the society that it represents [(page 64)].
If the customary subjects in a college of agriculture are organized and designed to train a man for efficiency in country life and to develop his outlook, so also is a department of home economics to train a woman for efficiency and to develop her outlook to life.
Home economics is not one "department" or subject, in the sense in which dairying or entomology or plant-breeding is a department. It is not a single specialty. It stands for the whole round of woman's work and place. Many technical or educational departments will grow out of it as time goes on. That is, it will be broken up into its integral parts, and it will then cease to be an administrative department of an educational institution; and very likely we shall lose the terms "home economics," "household economics," "domestic science," and the rest.
I would not limit the entrance of women into any courses in a college of agriculture; on the contrary, I want all courses open to them freely and on equal terms with men; but the subjects that are arranged under the general head of home economics are her special field and sphere. On the other hand, I do not want to limit the attendance of men in courses of home economics; in fact, I think it will be found that an increasing number of men desire to take these subjects as the work develops, and this will be best for society in general.
Furthermore, I do not conceive it to be essential that all teachers in home economic subjects shall be women; nor, on the other hand, do I think it is essential that all teachers in the other series of departments shall be men. The person who is best qualified to teach the subject should be the one who teaches it, whether man or woman.
As rapidly as colleges and universities come to represent society and to develop in all students a philosophy of life, the home-making units will of necessity take their place with other units.