No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 367 



things that spell fatigue or spell efficiency when the day is ended, as 

 it were. In Ihe home tlie gne.st was preparing onions, she happened 

 to be visiting there and Avas [>reparing onions for the meal and the lit- 

 tle daughter who was being trained for mother's efficient helper was 

 wandering around watching the guest very closely, just as the little 

 people do, you know, and not seeing her make the motions that she 

 was trained to make — and you know how these little people are al- 

 ways ready to pass on things much more quickly than they are will- 

 ing to do them themselves, and looking up, she said, "What is the first 

 thing you do wlien you start working Avith onions?" And the guest, 

 in astonishment, said, "I'm sure I don't know." And she said, "Al- 

 ways wash your hands and knife in cold water." She had learned her 

 lesson but did not alwavs practice it and so it is these little motions 

 that count after all. 



Sometimes we try to think that it is only in the great Avorkshops 

 that this word efficiency applies, and sometimes we think that our 

 kitchens and our homes are not great workshops. But, friends, when 

 I tell you that tliere are more than 18,000,000 people enployed in 

 homes — and I don't mean just ihe mere servants employed there, but I 

 mean the home-makers and managers — that there are more than 18,- 

 000,000 in this country of ours, then I believe our homes are a great 

 workshop where we need to study efficiency in m.ethod, where we need 

 to put more study on the subject than we have been putting on it. 



And again, when I tell you that more than ten billion dollars is 

 spent in food annually, isn't it time that we studied these questions 

 of efficiency for the home? How much of it do they tell us is wasted 

 annually? And is it anA'' wonder, if a^ou will just think for a moment 

 of all the home-makers, of all the managers of homes of this 18,000,000 

 how many have been trained for their positions? Tf you Avill think 

 for a minute how many you know that have been really trained for 

 the position into which they have come, I don't believe you will count 

 A'ery many. So, friends, is it any wonder that mistakes are made in 

 this business of home-making? Is it any wonder that there are lit- 

 tle leaks, yes, big leaks and is it any wonder that wrecked homes are 

 the result, sometimes? Very frequently in the great workshops they 

 employ an expert to come there and that expert will stay for days in 

 the workshop looking around and studying their methods of business 

 and ferreting out Avhere the little leaks are that these leaks may be 

 remedied, that they may produce A\ith less cost just as good an article. 

 It seems to me that with the little opportunities that the women of 

 this country have had to be trained as home makers, the little chance 

 they have had to be trained in real methods of work and efficiency, 

 wouldn't it be nice if we could have experts come into our home and 

 show us where the leaks are? And when T say leak, T do not mean 

 always where you are spending your money unwisely or where you are 

 just using your food not wisely perhaps, but f mean where this lost 

 motion is. where you are doinir a thing over and over as it were and 

 just one efFort would do the work, and then it seems to me there would 

 be hours left for the traininjr of the children thnt so frequently we 

 hear mothers say, "T don't neirloct a thing in my home, but T haven't 

 time to train my children." Well you knoAv T believe that the home 

 making, that is the dusting and sweeping and some of that work, had 

 better be left undone than the children's traininir left undone. It 

 seems to me that had better come first, but nevertheless I belieA^e that 



