230 



Missouri Agricultural Report. 



on the inconveniences, as they were more general. Yet there are still 

 those who do not think it worth while to give their girls, while in col- 

 lege, training particularly adapted for application in the life of the 

 home. Why is there still this feeling that the teaching of Home 

 Economics is not worth while? In analyzing the situation, it has 

 seemed to me to exist chiefly with those persons who saw in Home 

 Economics the teaching of cooking. Women pride themselves as 

 much on the accomplishment of cooking as upon any other art. They 

 have learned it by experience — not at school. Why should their 

 daughters? So did their fathers till the soil, and they tilled on and 

 on as their fathers liad done, until as a result much of the soil in the 



Textile Lahoratory. 



country which was first settled is worthless. It can still be dug into 

 in the same way, but it yet no longer yields crops. It must be handed 

 over to the chemist, and he must tell how it is to be enriched so as to 

 yield more crops. So long as Ilome Economics is simply evolving 

 palatable dishes, there is little excuse for a university course in it, but 

 when it means that this dish shall contain the most nourishment and 

 the nutritive constituents are selected to fill some definite need, when 

 the food is so prepared as to make it most easily available to the body, 

 when we bring scientific principles to our aid in the study of any of 

 the home problems — then Home Economics will become worth while. 

 When the old style of agriculture failed it was brought to the front 



