Missouri Housekeepers' Conference Association. 447 



making of excellently designed native baskets. Here is a field in 

 which the modern art education may find an opportunity for un- 

 doubted usefulness. The results of such an application of the prin- 

 ciples of art to the homely industries will be twofold. Individuals 

 will enjoy the gratification which comes from the creation of a 

 work of art, and communities will be educated to discard cheap, 

 gaudy articles made by machinery, simply to sell, and will cling 

 to and develop their own original artistic handicraft with its su- 

 perior wearing qualities. 



The Boone County Handicraft Exchange at Columbia aims to 

 establish an added line of communication between the university 

 and the farm, and thereby to serve the double purpose of giving 

 to skilled workers such simple rules of design, as will enable them 

 to reach a better market, and to furnish to buyers of taste well- 

 designed articles at a reasonable price. 



THE PRESENT CRISIS OF THE AMERICAN HOME. 



(Oharles A. Ellwood, Professor of Sociology, University of Missouri.) 



Professor Ellwood, in opening his address, called attention to 

 the fact that the home, or rather the family, is the most important 

 institution of human society. It is the function of the family in 

 society to conserve all social possessions and hand them down to the 

 next generation; not only are the material possessions thus pre- 

 served, but also the spiritual possessions of the race — language, re- 

 ligion, morality, art, government and ideals. The family thus pre- 

 serves the social continuity from one generation to another; it not 

 only reproduces the individuals of each generation, but it also re- 

 produces society itself. Moreover, in the relations of the members 

 of the family to each other, we have the source of altruism, upon 

 which society depends for each upward advance. Hence, moral 

 progress in society rests upon the family life. Christianity, itself, 

 indeed, is but an idealization of the family life. "Family affection, 

 in some form is the indispensable root of Christianity." The home, 

 therefore, charged with the task of bringing new individuals into 

 the world, socializing them and furnishing them with their ideals 

 of brotherhood and service, is by far the most important institu- 

 tion of society — church and State sinking into insignificance when 

 compared with it. 



The problem of the American home is not the making of cer- 



