EDITORIAL. 205 



been operated under private control, are considering the advisability 

 of taking, or have already taken, steps to become public institutions. 

 The Lake Placid Conference of Home Economics was organized in 

 1899 for the consideration and study of a variety of problems relat- 

 ing to the home, and particularly for the deA^elopment of the educa- 

 tional side of the subject. Since its organization the conference has 

 held annual meetings at which papers have been presented, topics 

 have been discussed and plans have been formulated for furthering 

 work in home economics. The conference meetings have been of 

 great benefit to teachers in American agricultural colleges and other 

 educational institutions and have done much to raise the standard 

 of education and efficiency in home economics. It is now generally 

 recognized that the subject can be so taught that it does not simply 

 mean the training of women so that they may be good cooks and 

 housewives. It may be presented in such a way that it is in reality 

 " mentally nutritive," and by j^roperly correlating the different 

 sciences and other subjects around the central idea of the home a 

 course can be provided for women which is logically consistent and 

 high in its ideals. At the same time it- may be so related to women's 

 activities that when thus trained they may be efficient workers in 

 their homes and communities, while they will also have a truly liberal 

 education. 



Though of wide influence, the Lake Placid Conference has never 

 been a large organization, and the opinion has been generally ex- 

 pressed that the growth of the home economics movement has been 

 so great that a new organization is now needed Avhich will be wide 

 in its scope and unite the many interests which have to do with this 

 subject. With this idea in mind the first steps were taken at the 

 Chautauqua meeting of the Lake Placid Conference last July toward 

 the founding of a body for which the name ''American Association 

 of Home Economics " has been proposed. This organization, it is 

 believed, will be to the home economics movement in the United 

 States and Canada what the American Chemical Society, the Amer- 

 ican Forestry Association, the American Physiological Society, and 

 similar organizations are in their respective fields. 



A meeting of the new association will be held in Washington De- 

 cember 31 to January 2 for purposes of organization and for outlin- 

 ing the work. The association will seek to bring together teachers 

 in home economics and related subjects, superintendents of schools 

 and other educators, parents, physicians, investigators, health officers, 

 architects, settlement workers, and students of social and civil affairs, 

 and others who are interested in the study of some j)hase of the gen- 

 eral question. Each of these groups has some valuable contribution 

 to make and some suggestion to offer with reference to the means 

 by which formal and informal educational enterprises may be pro- 



