No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 167 



ing out of principles by the intelligent industry of the better class 

 of women, and not the unskilled experimentation of the lower class 

 of foreigners. To quote from a recent magazine article: "When 

 domestic science is ranked beside grammar^ geography and foreign 

 languages in our educational system, housework will no longer be 

 under a ban, and the American kitchen will be emancipated from the 

 tyranny of incompetent and wasteful domestics." 



What scientific training has done to elevate the nursing of the sick 

 into a profession worthy the best class of women, that will it do also 

 to raise the work of the home to the same plane. 



It is an acknowledged fact that the span of human life is longer 

 now than in former generations. This results from our knowing 

 better how to live than our forefathers. Increase and diffuse the 

 best of this knowledge still further, teach the girls, and the boys too, 

 the necessity of proper temperature, good ventilation, perfect 

 drainage and absolute cleanliness of the houses they live in, the ad- 

 vantages of nutritious food and proper clothing, and the coming 

 generations can bid defiance to consumption, typhoid fever and all 

 the ills due to ignorant living. Another, and by no means the least 

 consideration is, that the study of household science will surely tend 

 to produce thrift and economy in the family and will thereby increase 

 the wealth of the community. 



It may be justly objected that there are no text-books and few 

 teachers competent to instruct in domestic science. This is true at 

 the present time; but the near future will see a different state of 

 things. It is our duty as mothers and heads of households to create 

 the demand for such teaching. 



After the school days are over, comes, in many cases, the intro- 

 duction into society, the whirl of gaity, in which all thought of prep- 

 aration for a life-work is quickly lost. Presently this young woman 

 takes upon herself the responsibility of ordering a household of her 

 own^ a task for which she has had no training and in the performance 

 of which she realizes, when too late, her pressing need of previous 

 training and of executive ability. 



Fortunate is the girl who attends a school where much atten- 

 tion as possible is paid to domestic science, the study of which is 

 made compulsory. She may, it is true, grudge the time taken from 

 the other, and to her, more attractive studies, but the knowledge thus 

 gained will eventually cause her to bless the hours spent in its ac- 

 quirement. 



The study of domestic science has an educational, a practical and 

 a moral influence. Under the first, comes neatness, order, the value 

 of time and strength. Under the practical, comes proper methods 

 and economy, and by these lessons, at the present time, economy is 

 being introduced into thousands of homes. Upon the moral side, 

 we will find that coarse girls are refined, and scholars who are dull 



