Farmers' Week in Agricultural College. 313 



our fathers when they were in tlie third reader, not to mention the 

 drawing, music, paper cutting, clay modeling, etc., that they knew noth- 

 ing of at all. It cannot be denied that there is much to be done, but in 

 school, as in life, we must ever find time for the things worth while. 



The problem of creating interest can usually be solved without 

 difficulty. The worth of a subject must be known, a need for it must be 

 felt, and an interest will follow as a natural result. The burden of in- 

 troducing a subject usually falls on the teacher, but often some wide 

 awake woman can arouse enthusiasm, then organize a club of girls, have 

 class meetings, display of work, etc., until finally it will be introduced 

 into the school and eventually become a fixed part of the regular work. 



The problem of equipment is not, as a rule, an insurmountable 

 difficulty. The matter of expense may be made nominal. Miss Gertrude 

 Johnson, in her report to Superintendent Greenwood, 1909, gives the sum 

 of $527.13 as the total expense in the equipment of six new schools, or 

 an average of $86 per school. But when no money is available, as is 

 generally the case in small towns, still something can be done. A part 

 of the laboratory or an empty room may be equipped by the pupils. A 

 small amount of expense may be met by giving some kind of an enter- 

 tainment, charging a small admission and serving a simple luncheon 

 prepared by the pupils. 



The work in home economics should not be abandoned for want of 

 equipment. A start should be made with the material at hand. Great 

 enterprises often have very small beginnings. 



In the great work of introducing home economics into the small 

 town schools as a subject to be taught to the pupils, we are almost at a 

 standstill. Why ? Because the teachers in the schools are not prepared 

 to teach it. Many of the teachers are willing if they only knew how to 

 go at it. How, then, is a teacher to take hold of it when there are moth- 

 ers who would laugh at her if she would undertake to tell the girls how 

 to oook or sew. One good thing about the teaching of domestic science 

 is that the teacher does not need to know it all when she takes up the 

 subject. 



In a town of only a few hundred inhabitants my own experience 

 in introducing home economics met with the best of success. A few girls 

 in the sophomore class of the High School were the nucleus. They had 

 no equipment whatever, and no possibility of getting any from the 

 school board. The boys of the class were already organized into an 

 agricultural club, and the girls were eager to do something along similar 

 lines. I suggested that they meet once a week at the homes of the mem- 

 bers and use their own kitchen. Their lessons were based upon those 



