DOMESTIC SCIENCE IN ITS RELATION TO SANITARY SCIENCE. Hi) 



some other i«iibstance and make an exhaustive study of the result. But 

 that night he will probably watch with equanimity or absolute lack 

 of interest soma process of cookery by means of which the food pre- 

 pared for him may undergo changes even more intricate and possibly 

 of much graver results to both his physical and mental well being. The 

 physicist may make known to his class all the laws of heat, but never 

 pause to give the fire tender in his home even the simplest of these laws 

 whereby he might make possible more expeditious and skillful work and 

 the saving of an entirely superfluous expenditure for fuel. The doctor 

 may make his calls faithfully each day and conscientiously prescribe for 

 each of his many patients, but in his home his children may be allowed 

 to eat pickles and cookies and candy without check, and the mother may 

 ruin her nervous system by seeking rest through the soothing effects 

 produced by the milder stimulating drinks — tea and coffee. These things 

 are not at all singular, not uncommon, nor are they stated as if they 

 had been discovered through the action of experiment. They form the 

 common background of our lives and indicate the directions into which 

 scientific investigations have failed to penetrate with any marked or tell- 

 ing effect. Not that eft'orts have not been made, but where they have the 

 results have too often been marked with failure. Lack of interest on 

 the part of the worker, should the scientist endeavor to work with or for 

 her, and lack of appreciation by the scientist of what her work has to 

 offer, are the conditions most often met Avith. 



The laws of science, of what avail is it to know them, if they cannot 

 help us in our lives? And where in our lives do we come more nearly 

 or more often in contact with natural phenomena than in the work 

 connected with the home? The housekeeper's labors bring her very near 

 to the scientist for help and counsel, and upon him she must pretty gen- 

 erally be dependent, for her labors are all so engrossing and continuous 

 that she can seldom be the scientist, too. But she can learn of him and 

 understand the processes through which she must carry her labors, and, 

 menial as much of her work maj- seem and truly is, such knowledge will 

 make it rich with a value that is two-fold, for "The spirit may open wings 

 as wide as the firmament in a cell as narrow as the human hand.'* Nor 

 is the reward wholly to her who thus awakens to the true worth and 

 beauty of her work, for no field offers work of more real value, no field 

 is more sadly in need of investigation, and nowhere will the results 

 be of greater benefit than in that which concerns the daily life of all the 

 world. 



A mutual impulse causes the home-maker to open to the scientist the 

 gates which have enclosed her life work, even as he has turned toward 

 them in his spirit of investigation, searching for those conditions which 

 his science will effect and which can, in turn, make it worth while. 



Everything in the housekeeper's life is vital — living, life-giving or life- 

 given. Nothing is permanent, nothing without its special force. From 

 the food which is to make and sustain the body and thus enter into the 

 dwelling place of a human soul, to the air which we take into our bodies 

 as "the breath of life," nothing is unimportant or unworthy of con- 

 sideration. It is quite worth while to separate the housekeeper's labors 

 occasionally in order to study them and view them in their true light; 

 to remove them as it were from among the oft-repeated household tasks, 

 which, to the uninterested worker, grow to be drudgery, and from the 



