Even more significant for the future is the work which is being done in a few cities to train girls for their chief work in life—homemaking. The home schools at Indianapolis and Providence are, perhaps, typical. The Indianapolis School Board bought a number of wretched homes near one school in a crowded district. The boys in the school renovated the homes, converting one into a rug shop, another into a mop factory, and still a third into a shoe-shop. In these shops the children of the school did their trade work. Another house was made into a model home—(model for that quarter)—in which the domestic science department was located. Of this home the girls took entire charge, living in it by the day. There they were taught, by practical experience, the art of homemaking.
The home school of Providence, Rhode Island, under the direction of Mrs. Ada Wilson Trowbridge, has received nation-wide recognition. Six hundred dollars, appropriated by the Board of Education, renovated and furnished the flat on Willard Avenue in which the school is held.
The girls who elect to take work in the home school—the work is wholly elective—may come on Monday and Tuesday, or on Wednesday and Thursday. The hours are 4 to 6, or 7:30 to 9:30. On Friday, anyone comes who cares to. The day pupils are from the grammar schools and the evening pupils come from the factories and shops. Seventy-five names on the waiting list of day classes indicate the popularity of the school.
“We try to keep the school like the homes from which these girls come,” explained Mrs. Trowbridge, as she showed her tastefully arranged apartment. “The girls in the Technical High School worked out the color schemes, selected the patterns and bought the materials. We tried to get things which were good looking and durable.”
The three kinds of work, (1) Cooking, (2) Housekeeping, and (3) Sewing, are carried on in rotation, a girl spending one entire afternoon at cooking, the next at sewing and a third at housework. Thus each girl does an afternoon’s job in each subject. The cooking class studies successively “breakfast,” “lunch” and “dinner,” in each case preparing menus and cooking the food. A meal is served nearly every day. The service falls to the housekeeping class, which is also responsible for cleaning up, tending the furnace, washing, ironing and the like. Included in this part of the work are a number of thorough discussions of personal hygiene and home sanitation. To the sewing class, the girls bring their home sewing problems. Certain classes darn stockings while a teacher reads to them. Some girls make underclothing and dresses. The beginners hem table cloths, napkins, towels, dustcloths, etc., for the school. The classes are small (ten to fifteen) making individual work possible.
“No, no,” protested Mrs. Trowbridge, “we have no course of study, or else, if you please, there are as many courses as there are girls. Each girl has her problems and we aim to meet them.”
The backyard, utilized as a garden, furnishes vegetables which the girls cook and can. These vegetables, together with canned fruits, jellies, jams and pickles, which the girls put up, give the school such an excellent source of revenue that last year it turned over $15 to the Superintendent of Schools.
The crowning work of the school was done in a bare upstairs room which the girls papered and painted themselves. “Two of them have since done the same thing with rooms at home,” declared Mrs. Trowbridge, happily. “Isn’t that good for a start?”
The home school stays close to home problems, dealing with the facts of life as the girls who come to school see them. It would hardly be fair to expect more of any school.