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 in μι, 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 government in 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 they can 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 educational training 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 a terra 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 as a 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.
THE RELATION OF COLLEGE WOMEN TO DOMESTIC SCIENCE
In a Western city, somewhat addicted to the formation of literary clubs and reading-circles, is a company of women who meet for the study of history, closing the afternoon’s work with a discussion of current events. In alluding to these discussions, a member once said, “No matter what subject is introduced, we always drift off to the woman question.” The half-jesting remark has in it more of wisdom than of criticism. The so-called “woman question” is not, as was once popularly supposed, synonymous either with woman suffrage or with the higher education of woman—it is as broad and as deep as the thoughts and activities of woman. It was inevitable that for many years efforts should be made to open new occupations to women, to give them better preparation for their work, and to secure fair remuneration for service well done. It was inevitable, because, however much some sociologists may wish it otherwise, the fact remains that woman is and must be to a certain extent a wage-earner. These efforts have been reasonably successful; almost every avenue of work is open to women, and almost every coveted opportunity for preparation is hers. The reaction, however, has come, and the pertinent question is being asked, “Why has so little been done to improve the work of woman in those fields which have always without question been considered legitimately hers?”