Somewhere in this chapter the reader will find a picture of the “living room” of the “model” house of the Washington-Allston Elementary School in Boston. The boys and girls of graduating grade in that school give four hours a week to matters connected with the welfare of that house. They have furnished it throughout with their own handiwork, the girls making pillow-cases, wall-coverings, window-curtains, etc., and the boys making chairs, tables, cupboards, etc. Succeeding classes will furnish it again. The reason why Mr. Crawford, the master of the school, chose to have a house for a manual training laboratory was simply that a house offers ampler opportunities than any other kind of place for instruction in the 122 practical efficiencies of daily living for both sexes.
The system will be complete when the girls get a bigger training in design by making more of the chairs, and when the boys get a bigger training in diet by doing more of the cooking.
We have now glanced at each of the three principal contributions made to modern education by the new study of the home. We have come to understand that much of each contribution will be for the male as well as for the female inhabitants of the home. If girls are to be led toward wisdom in the use of money, so are boys. If girls are to be habituated to the principles of Right Living, so again are boys. If girls have a need of manual training, with certain materials and implements, so boys, with perhaps other materials and implements, have a need of manual training, too.
UPPER PICTURE IS A CLASS IN FOOD ADULTERATIONS IN THE HOME ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN.
LOWER PICTURE IS THE LIVING ROOM OF THE “MODEL” HOUSE IN THE WASHINGTON-ALLSTON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, BOSTON.
It may be that in each case, except the last, there will be an ampler body of instruction for feminine than for masculine use. But the excess will be small enough to be absorbed without interference with general education of the 123 largest and most liberal sort. If this were not true by natural fact, it would have to be made true artificially. The body of home economics instruction could not be suffered to defeat its own ultimate mental purpose. The study of specialized techniques could not be permitted to narrow the spacious educational experience needed for that broadest of all generalities, the homemaker’s intelligent Consumption, Enjoyment, Use of all the world’s physical and spiritual commodities.
Surely we can now say with unanimous consent that Home Economics has revealed itself to be not a species of sex education but a species of vocational education. We miss its inmost intent, and we divert it from its mission, if we start with saying “Let us teach girls.” We have to start with saying “Let us teach Foods, Textiles, Hygiene.” We then ask “Who need to know about Foods, Textiles, Hygiene?” In answer, our largest group of scholars will come from among the prospective managers of households. But we are not teaching feminine accomplishments. We are teaching human life-tasks.