It is obvious nowadays that the mistresses of the first two decades of high-school teaching, being the first college-bred women, were suffering from a reaction against domestic interests, and the manner in which these had absorbed the old-fashioned woman. Their best pupils were at once destined for college; they were considered too good for mere domestic life, and were prepared for careers, mostly for teaching. This tendency was naturally accentuated by the fact that all mistresses were single women, with little prospect of any but a celibate life.
In the earlier stages of girls' education, then, it was the teacher who urged the promising girl to have a career; but the more recent development is that the parents, harassed by increasing economic pressure, and encouraged by the instances they meet of successful professional women, press more and more strongly for their girls to be educated for professions, whether they are exceptionally gifted or not. It is recognised in almost all grades of the middle class that the chance of a daughter marrying, and, further, the chance of her marriage being an assured provision for her maintenance throughout life, is by no means a certainty.
These considerations must militate against the appearance of domestic subjects in the school time-table, but there are others working in exactly the opposite direction. These are the increase in house rent and general rise in prices which make economy in domestic affairs, and good management, more valued; the dearth of servants; and the decay of the old traditions of housekeeping. Another factor is the new cult of hygiene, and increased interest in diet, shown especially by the inhabitants of large towns, who bewail their lack of energy and fitness.
If the home is to establish itself as an acknowledged success in modern conditions, it ought to be run by women with brains. It is now becoming acknowledged that the work needs the application of the scientific method of thinking. It may be true that home-making in the non-material sense is an art, but housekeeping nowadays is a science; and so much a science that a woman who has the chance of making herself an expert will be tempted to make housekeeping a career, and to undertake the job on a much larger scale than is needed in the ordinary house.
Thus, while there was practically no teaching of domestic subjects in girls' secondary schools until about seven years ago, a demand for teachers of the kind has sprung up very recently, and is rapidly increasing.
The headmistress anxious to undertake something of the sort has had many difficulties to face in the immediate past. The only teachers of domestic arts whom she could engage had received a very different education from the other members of her staff. If their whole time were not taken up with teaching their subject, they had few or no subsidiary subjects to offer, nor were they prepared for those curiously mingled clerical and pastoral duties which fall to the lot of a form mistress. In general education they might, indeed, be obviously below the girls in the upper forms, whose general culture had been sedulously cultivated for years. If teachers of this kind were, nevertheless, not to be kept for selected "stupid girls," it was possible (1) to introduce domestic work of the simple handicraft nature into the middle school, leaving it out of the upper school where there was a greater pressure on the time-table, or (2) to organise a post-school domestic course for girls who were not preparing for a profession.
The type of woman offering herself as a teacher in domestic arts has meanwhile been changing and developing, owing to the fact that a marked advance has taken place in the facilities for training. The minimum qualifications now required by most education authorities are diplomas for cookery, laundry-work, and housewifery, granted by a training school recognised by the Board of Education. It is advisable to take a fuller course which includes needlework and dressmaking. Most training schools for domestic arts provide a two or three year-course, according to the subjects taken. The three-year course, including cookery, laundry-work, housewifery, dressmaking, and needlework, costs about £75. Scholarships are offered both by the training schools and by public bodies. These cover the whole normal period of training, and an extension course for scientific study. The subjects included are the principles and processes involved in cookery, laundry-work, and household management, the last comprising such diverse matters as the selection and furnishing of various types of houses, repairing furniture, the choice and care of household linens, simple upholstery, management of income, first-aid, home-nursing, and the care of infants and young children. Many training-schools arrange for their students to gain experience in a crêche or similar institution, and to visit homes of various types. Practical experience is gained in housekeeping and catering, superintending the arrangements for meals, ordering stores and keeping accounts. Voice production and blackboard drawing are also taught, while science is studied concurrently with the above. The course in science embraces some Theoretical and Practical Chemistry, Physics, Physiology, Hygiene (personal and school hygiene and preventive measures), and the Theory and Practice of Education. Domestic Science students gain teaching experience not only in the various departments of the training-school, but also in elementary and secondary schools; happily the training is the same for those intending to take up either elementary or secondary teaching.
Thus it is seen that the present-day teacher of household arts is much more fitted to train the well-educated girl to organise household matters, than was her predecessor. Not only is manipulative skill acquired, but scientific reasons for processes and methods are outlined, and improvements are suggested. There is, however, still the danger that the student's training in science has been so subordinated to the acquirement of manipulative skill that her knowledge of scientific facts is not sufficiently based on scientific training and method.
Much, then, is to be urged in favour of the woman with a science degree taking courses in domestic arts, but it is essential for her to attain a high standard of practical work. It has sometimes been found that a very academic and scientific method of treatment has tended to lower the standard of manipulative skill. Nevertheless qualified graduates find themselves, at the moment, greatly in demand. The economical headmistress must always be on the look out for an acquisition to her staff who will, like Count Smorltork's politics, "surprise in herself many branches." If the headmistress can solve her difficulty about her domestic arts teacher by engaging a college-bred woman, with a degree to put on the prospectus, all sorts of ordinary subjects for her odd hours and undertaking to teach cooking as well, she will jump at the chance, and pay her £10 to £20 more salary than the ordinary assistant-mistress. She will economise greatly by the arrangement. If she has some amount of money to back her schemes, and a large school to administer, she will prefer two people to one composite one. But she will beg them to collaborate and to work together. She will not expect the woman with the science degree and a brief subsequent training in the arts to have the manipulative skill of the one who has done something like one thousand hours of actual practice, according to the prescription of the Board of Education. She will ask the former to show the girls how modern science is connected with the modern house, and how the scientific way of thinking helps in keeping a house, as it does in keeping one's own health and fitness.
During the past five years one secondary school after another has taken up Domestic Arts as a school subject. The initiative usually comes from the headmistress, and is a matter of personal judgment, so that the introduction is still an experiment on trial, and the method of trial varies. Before giving some indication of the methods tried, we must return to the demand for teachers. It will be clear from what has been said, that a science graduate who has studied and practised household arts and cooking, or a trained teacher of Domestic Arts who has also some science certificate and a high standard of general education, will at this moment command a higher salary than the ordinary secondary schoolmistress, and is practically certain of a post. But either of these individuals requires an unusually long period of training, for which most people have neither the time nor the spare capital.