284 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



a home can do much to further these results. Warden J. C. Sanders, 

 of the State Penitentiary at Fort Madison, Iowa, said that out of the 

 455 inmates, very few had had the advantage of a good home. 13 



Although woman is specialized for this important business of home 

 work upon the outcome of which depends first the vital, then the mental, 

 moral and social, welfare of mankind, she receives in but few cases any 

 preparation for her important task. She takes the methods of house- 

 work which are traditional in her environment and makes use of them 

 according to her individual training and aptitude. The exceptional 

 woman may use all the data of the scientists in the administration of 

 her home. What she is able to do ought not to be made the measure of 

 what the average woman may be expected to do. The average woman 

 goes blindly on in her specialized work, laboring hard at a task for 

 which she has no aid but home traditions and the columns of the home 

 magazines. 



To be sure the home magazines are contributing much toward bet- 

 ter conditions of home living, for many women would not know that 

 scientists are at work continually on problems of home betterment were 

 not some of the results of their investigations made available through 

 the medium of the home magazines. 



The bulletins of the Department of Agriculture, the farmer's insti- 

 tutes throughout the country, the home economics movement, 14 and 

 many writers — Mrs. Eichards, Miss Barrows, Miss Bevier, Mrs. Korer, 

 Miss Kinne, Mrs. Hill, Miss Farmer, Miss Hunt, Mrs. Lincoln and 

 others — are doing much by a crusade of enlightenment to improve con- 

 ditions of foods, their preparation and uses in our homes. That is, they 

 are trying to make available for women the knowledge of the scientists, 

 which either is not available for the average woman or else is beyond 

 her mental reach. 



For instance, two noteworthy books on the subject of nutrition by 

 Professor Chittenden, of Yale University, have been published in re- 

 cent years. 15 They are noteworthy because by scientific tests upon dif- 

 ferent classes of people they show the exact needs of the body for pro- 

 tein, the material for building up and replacing tissue. Consequently 

 some very definite conclusions can be drawn concerning food customs 

 which should be known to every woman and prevail in every house- 

 hold. The essential parts of the books are so plainly and entertainingly 

 written that a woman with at least a high school education could under- 

 stand them and profit by them. Yet inquiry reveals very few house- 

 keepers who have read them. The reason for this ignorance can be at- 

 tributed to the fact that as yet woman in her evolution has not reached 



18 An address delivered before the Iowa City High School, December, 1909. 

 "Bevier and Usher, "History of the Household Economics Movement." 

 15 Chittenden, ' ' Physiological Economy of Nutrition, ' ' Chittenden, ' ' The 

 Nutrition of Man. ' ' The F. A. Stokes Company. 



