466 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



They are sold raw and half cooked, and ready to be eaten. They 

 come in baskets, in boxes, in cans, in bottles. Our wisest grand- 

 mother would stand dismayed at the possibilities of choice and the 

 need of knowledge of operations performed at a distance. 



Then the wool from the sheep, the linen from the flax, and the 

 cotton from the field were spun into thread, woven into cloth, and 

 the cloth made into clothes at home. Now clothes-making has 

 largely left the home; but clothes-buying is still a home problem, 

 and no small amount of knowledge is needed to buy wisely. 



The wells of our parents may have been polluted with leachings 

 from their own privies, but at least the trouble was under their own 

 control. Now water is often piped from a distance, and no amount 

 of measuring the distance in the houses between the water and 

 waste pipes will tell anything of the purity of the water supply. 



Household wastes, while then by no means always ideally re- 

 moved, at least less often had opportunity to become a source of 

 nuisance and danger to neighbors at a distance. Today, in cities, 

 the garbage from the best residence districts is sometimes dumped 

 to fester near the homes of the poorest people, while the dirt and 

 disease of these people is sometimes carried by food or garments 

 prepared by them for sale, into the homes of the rich. 



Observation of home industries will no longer give all the 

 knowledge needed to economically and safely care for the house- 

 hold. | :| I ( : : ..I : ■ \ 



Moreover, mental and social contacts have broadened as fast 

 as the physical. Servants are more restless. And, if parents are to 

 retain the confidence and respect of their children, to say nothing 

 of helping to prepare them for this broadening life, they must know 

 the history of past culture and current events, including the latest 

 triumphs of science and art, as well as psychology, pedagogy, and 

 sociology. 



Thus, today, there is more to learn that concerns the home, 

 and less time in which to learn it. Some short-cut process must be 

 used. Not only is it less easy for a mother to arrange to train her 

 daughter at home, but the changed conditions make the precepts 

 handed down from grandmother and the experiences gained by the 

 mother herself insufficient to meet the still rapidly changing con- 

 ditions. A study of underlying principles does much to shorten 

 the time needed to learn details. Moreover, only an understanding 

 of underlying principles makes adaptations to new conditions easily 

 possible. Few home-makers know enough of these principles to 

 competently teach their daughters. Moreover, it is easier for the 



