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students of sociology believe that the study and practice of domestic science 

 would give to domestic employment the dignity which it deserves and would 

 help to solve the problem of better living at less cost. It would give to the 

 mistress of tlie liome a knowledge of foods in the widest sense. She would be 

 able to select such as would best serve the purpose of the growing child, the 

 laboring man or woman, the aged, and the invalid. She would see that the 

 muscle and bone building material were supplied in proper proportion to the 

 energy producers. 



There are mothers who are studying the subject of balanced rations for their 

 families as the farmers do for their stock, realizing that every child has a right 

 to the best possible physical and mental development. 



It is no longer a question whether the character of the food eaten aCCects the 

 mental and moral status of the individual. 



The mistress of a home should be able not only to select food intelligently, 

 but she should be able to cook and serve it in such a manner as to render it 

 palatable and attractive. 



Cooking is a fine art — just as much of an art as is music or drawing — and 

 she who is master of it is deserving of as much credit as she who excels in 

 picture or song. 



We need to keep in mind the ideal which Ruskin so beautifully set before us 

 when he said " Cooking means the knowledge of Medea and of Circe and of 

 Calypso and of Helen and of Rebecca and of the Queen of Sheba ; it means the 

 knowledge of all herbs and fruits and balms and spices ; and of all that is 

 sweet and healing in fields and groves and savory in meats ; it means careful- 

 ness and inventiveness and watchfulness and willingness and readiness of appli- 

 ance. It means the economy of your great-grandmother and the science of modern 

 chemists ; it means much tasting and no wasting ; it means English thorough- 

 ness and a French art and Arabian hospitality. Needlework, too, is an art, and 

 she who knows how to use her needle deftly and how to fashion garments be- 

 comingly is just as truly an artist as is the painter who drapes the figures on 

 his canva.s." 



But again I repeat that cooking and sewing are only phases of domestic 

 science. 



Every woman who is mistress of a home needs to know the sanitary condi- 

 tions of that home without the intervention of the board of health. She needs 

 to know something about bacteria — those tiny plants that play such an impor- 

 tant part in her work. 



She needs to know that some are friends and some are foes, and she should 

 know how to cultivate the one and how to destroy the other. Every housewife 

 should underscand something of chemistry and of the laws that govern chemical 

 changes and combinations. She needs to know something of biology, that she 

 may understand the processes of life and growth. She will learn that sunlight 

 is the great germ destroyer, and that dark and ill-ventilated rooms invite dis- 

 ease germs. 



It is said that the prosperity of a nation depends upon the moral and phys- 

 ical condition of its people, and their moral and physical condition depend 

 largely upon the food they eat and the houses they live in. 



The habits of industry and the sense of responsibility gained by a training in 

 domestic affairs is of no small value in forming the girl's character, in estab- 

 lishing in her mind the difference between being a partner in the world's work 

 and being a parasite, enjoying always the fruit of others' labor. 



On no account would we be understood as advocating industrial training to the 

 exclusion of other studies; but it seems to have been proven that this work can 

 be taught in the schools without loss to other branches of study. 



