;]:iS ANM AI, KKrOKT OF Till'] ()ff. I too. 



Icick of national control of natural lesonrces; goveininent inter- 

 ference with natural resources; increase in pojjulation; more luxur- 

 ious way of livinj;; lack of wisdom in llie exiicnditui-e of money by 

 the women. These and manv nu^re reasons are uiven, wilh a corre- 

 spondingly large nund)er of solutions for the ditliculty. 



I am not the person nor is this ihc place to weigh these and 

 to try to lind out more exjilanaliou. Most of us to-day are too 

 vitally interested in our own homes and in the immediate elfect of 

 present conditions u])(m our own |)ocket I)ooks and households to care 

 to discuss broad national issues. Moreover, wo need uoi couline 

 ourselves 1o the cost of living in money only, for at this day with 

 its complex demands, living costs much more than mere money. 

 It costs too much in other expenditures — health, strength, comfort 

 and even happiness. Shakespeare says in one of his plays: ''Men 

 die because they know not how to live." To meet our present con- 

 ditions we might paraphrase this: "Women are <lying before their 

 time because they know not how to save time," or if they are not 

 dying, they are ruining their dispositions, digestion, and often their 

 domestic tranquility because they do not know how to keep house 

 properly — how to ccmserve their natural resources of health aud 

 strength, as well as the acquired resources of money. 



Some of you are doubtless saying: ''Why talk about the causes of 

 the high cost of living? What we want to know is the cure and 

 how do you pro])Ose a remedy through the vague term, 'Domestic 

 Science.'-' To many people to-day this term suggests little because 

 they suspect we are talking about a mere theory, something which 

 is studied in colleges, which is perhaps being introduced into some 

 public schools ui.der the name of cooking, but which has no ])lace 

 in the practical affairs of the home. They tell us that ''the people 

 Avho talk about it have no homes of their own, and do not know 

 what it means to wash and iron and bake; there is, therefore, no 

 more value in Domestic Science than in a book of rules of what to 

 do in case of drowning — when the book is in the house and we are 

 in the water." 



A few years ago men thought the same thing about agriculture. 

 It was considered farming on paper with i)en and ink as tools, in- 

 stead of on the farm with plough and rake and hoe, but few to-day 

 fail to recognize that the most successful farmers work with the 

 head, as well as with the hands. The man who makes money out 

 of his acres is the man who understands the structure of the soil, 

 its possibilities and needs; and who is ready to meet modern con- 

 ditions with modern methods. The man who makes money from 

 )iis poultry or cattle studies the problem of feeding and housing 

 these with the two-fold object of sui)plying best these needs and of 

 doing it at the lowest cost. If he slights either of these objects, he 

 may have some success, but he will not have the highest. 



Now, Domestic Science, or as we call the broad term, "Home 

 Economics," merely means to the home what agriculture means to 

 the farm. It is a study of the problems and conditions of house- 

 keeping in the twentieth century. It includes not merely the theory 

 of what food elements the body needs and of how to supply these 

 at the lowest cost, but also practice in marketing to secure the best 

 food values and in actual cooking to get the best results from the 



