132 STATE BOARD OE"' AGRICULTURE. 



other life. Service in the home is divine. Woman's work is dear to God 

 and can not be spared. Hearts, too, must be educated with brain^ hand 

 and eye, for "So intimate is the alliance of mind and heart that talent 

 sinks uniformly with character." 



Then as women let us do all in our power to have a course in general 

 house and home keeping, teaching the love of service, economy and thrift 

 put in our public schools. The art of living will be mastered sooner when 

 what should be eaten and how to cook it is known; our nation stronger 

 when w^omen know the value of food particles. 



Germany makes domestic science compulsory, as are the other 

 branches, requiring every girl at 20 years to possess a certificate of 

 knowledge in general housekeeping, that she may be able to preside with 

 ability over the home she may be called upon to share. The arguments 

 used to pass this law are well worthy of consideration. If every civilized 

 nation would make and enforce this law it would bring about a gastro- 

 nomic revolution, at least in America. But listen, there is a protest from 

 the teachers: "We and our pupils are overworked now; we have more 

 than we can do in the hours allowed for school work. We can 

 do no more." They have enough to do. and when I look at the young 

 army of pale, be-spectacled faces and thin figures that march out of the 

 schoolhouse, I say, enough of brain work. It is time that parents add 

 their protest to the teachers', and school boards listened, asking them- 

 selves the question: For what are we educating? Ought it not to be for 

 life? 



Every day the path of the bread winnner is narrower, more difficult 

 to climb, 



THE HOME KEEPER'S PROBLEM 



harder to solve. Sooner or latter the public school must fit pupils for the 

 store, shop, office, farm and home. So many leave school before the high 

 school work is finished that the practical work must be done in the lower 

 grades. Now comes the cry: "The curriculum is full, we must follow 

 the course laid out, we are educating for the T'. of M." I wish that 

 were true, but it is not true of the masses. For every pupil fitted for the 

 U. of M., there are one hundred who never finish the high school. In 

 one count}' that I know well, statistics show that the number of gradu- 

 ates from seven high schools in the past 20 to 25 years is 785; of this num- 

 ber 545 from town, 242 from the farms. Ninety-five of these are college 

 graduates. The per cent of high school graduates who are college gradu- 

 ates in this county, in the given time, is 12. Are we educating for higher 

 institutions or for life? 



For every child destined to live a life of ease and luxury, there are 

 100 who must enter the ranks of the toilers, and is it not for them 

 that the public school ought to be maintained? In making a course of 

 study, why not be governed by the demand? The object of the school 

 should be to educate ihe children of the masses to a higher plane of 

 living, teaching them the use of brain, hand, and eje. 



Suppose every mind was well versed in book lore, with undeveloped 

 muscles and unskilled hands, what would be the result? Each would 

 try to live by brain work. How would they be fed and clothed? Neces- 

 sity can invent crime as well as machinery, and the vices of intelligence 

 are more dangerous than the vices of ignorance. The United States pays 



