Missouri Housekeepers' Conference Association. 467 



school to do this teaching as it has long taught language, mathe- 

 matics, and science. 



Admitted that Home Economics should be taught in school, the 

 question at once arises, in what schools? 



Skill in manipulation is most easily acquired at the age when 

 children are in the grades ; therefore, the doing side of the work is 

 best taught at this time. Moreover, it gives the teacher an oppor- 

 tunity to direct into useful channels the restless activity of the 

 children, and to use it as a means of teaching the formal, in them- 

 selves, uninteresting reading, writing, and number work. 



In the high school more of the reasons and general principles 

 underlying the work can be developed, especially in correlation with 

 the other science and art work. Here, too, its peculiar interest 

 makes it of especial educative value. If properly taught, it can do 

 more than other science work to develop the scientific spirit in 

 girls. The other sciences have been organized by men and the illus- 

 trations all taken from a man's world are often more confusing 

 than illuminating to a girl. Domestic science gives illustrations 

 from her own world, and so makes this other science work more 

 interesting and comprehensible to these girls. Since comparatively 

 few students go beyond the high school it is very important from 

 the home side that the work should be given here. It is also very 

 important from both the home and school side that it should be 

 well taught by properly prepared teachers. 



While much can be done in the high school, until a student 

 has had college or university work in physical, biological, and social 

 sciences, and has reached the greater maturity of college years, 

 many of the underlying principles cannot be fully grasped. In 

 college, as well as in the lower schools, the work has especial edu- 

 cative value, because of its own inherent interest. Moreover, by 

 its aid, all the work of a general college course planned originally 

 for men can be made more interesting and valuable to women 

 students. 



Admitted that Home Economics should be taught in universi- 

 ties, as well as in the grades and high school what should it include? 



Home Economics or Domestic Science, to most persons, means 

 sewing and cooking. This is so, because sewing and cooking are the 

 two operations of the home that can be most easily moved from the 

 home to the school, and there studied concretely. An apron or a 

 loaf of bread can, with the proper equipment, be as easily made at 

 school as at home, and few schools attempt to make Domestic 



