A college course for the girl
At first thought it would seem that ability to prepare a good meal and to do her own sewing might constitute all the education in household economy necessary for any young woman. But such proves not to be the case. There are hundreds of home-making problems, great and small, for which mere knowledge of the two important affairs just named will provide no answer. While the ability to cook and sew well are doubtless essential characteristics of the good housekeeper, they are not at all a guarantee that their possessor is a good home maker.
Parents must learn to take the larger and more liberal view of the future of their children. Not merely practice in the culinary art, but also a developed and refined personality; not merely industrial efficiency, but also constructive ability of a social nature; not merely mechanical skill in managing the details of housework, but a set of well-matured, effective plans for making the home over which she presides a place of joy and contentment for the other members of the family—these are some of the evidences of character which the wise, far-seeing parent might well desire for his daughter. Now, it is the thesis of this chapter that the normal woman is at her best only when she has become mistress of her own well-managed household. But such an exalted position can scarcely be reached except through a broad, general course of preparation.
The one-sided, classical college training has spoiled for life many otherwise good and happy women. Such a course tends strongly to draw the mind and the affections of the young woman away from the home and from motherhood and other such matters so fundamental to the well-being of the race. But in seeking for an ideal school for the daughter the farmer will find unsurpassed that institution which offers extensive courses in household art and management, supplemented fully with work in the so-called culture subjects—language, literature, history, sociology, psychology, and economics. This work constitutes what might be called a balanced schedule of instruction for the young woman. If pursued to its conclusion, such a course of training enriches her personality and multiplies her opportunities for future usefulness many fold.
Associations with refined young men
If the young woman’s preparation for her life work be satisfactory to all, she must have extensive experience in the society of young men such as only the co-educational college can give. As her position in the rural home has been already too much isolated, an exclusive women’s college is least to be desired as a place to educate the country girl. But the domestic science course in a state university or a state agricultural college will be found almost ideal. Here the girl may be held to a reasonable performance of her assigned duties, while at the same time she may mingle freely in the society of both sexes.
Indeed, if the thesis of this chapter be a sound and tenable one,—namely, that normally woman’s highest satisfaction is to be sought through helping her attain efficient home life,—then, there is every reason for agreeing with the late Professor James in his contention that every young woman ought to be taught how to know a good man. It is distinctively the business of the young college woman, not only to prepare well all her lessons in household economy and the literary subjects, but also to keep her eye out for a suitable life companion. And her father should be made to realize that her opportunities for marrying a man of high worth and ability are increased many fold through the completion of a course in the ideal form of co-educational college.
Marriages among college mates are usually most successful, both in the final establishment of substantial home life and in point of resulting in a reasonable number of well-reared children. Statistics gathered widely show that the young woman college graduate marries somewhat later than her non-attending sister, that she has slightly better health, that her children are somewhat fewer, but better reared.
Plate XXXI.