FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 127 



SCIENTIFIC HOUSEKEEPING. 



BY MRS. C. M. PARTCH, ARMADA. 



It is to the eternal credit of woman that through all these ages she 

 has, for the most part, endeavored to fill the sphere assigned to her to 

 the best of her ability, oftentimes but dimly realizing the importance of 

 her work and so falling short of its highest possibilities, yet always 

 bringing to it the maximum of loving self-sacrifice. But she wakes up to 

 find that the Twentieth Century is demanding more of her than did the 

 early years in the history of the race, and she realizes that if she is to 

 meet this demand her knowledge of housewifery must keep pace with the 

 increasing activities of the husbands and sons who are being fitted by 

 her for fighting life's battles and winning its victories. She realizes, 

 that if she is to be held responsible for the health of her household, she 

 must understand what causes disease and what makes for health; that 

 if the lack of good morals is to a considerable degree caused hj the lack 

 of a properly nourished body, then so much the more must she know 

 how to provide the proper nourishment for those under her care; in 

 other words, she sees she can no longer be excused on the plea of ignor- 

 ance, but is expected to be a scientific housewife. 



Increasing wealth has brought to us the ability to build our houses so 

 well that the cold air finds almost no way of getting in. We can heat 

 them to summer temperature and can live in a hothouse atmosphere that 

 robs us of our vitality, weakens our powers of resistance and leaves us 

 easy prey to the germs of pneumonia and tuberculosis ; we can load our 

 tables each day with the sweetmeats and pastries which our hardy an- 

 cestors deemed luxuries, but which to us seem necessities and the too 

 frequent use of which leaves us no appetite for the plainer and more 

 nourishing food we ought to eat. 



Increasing ambition for wealth has led us into the false economy of 

 buying where we can buy the cheapest, and this same ambition has 

 tempted manufacturers into giving us, not the thing we ask for, but some 

 adulterated product. These adulterations are more often than not in- 

 jurious, and are found in the most unsuspected places, till even with the 

 best intentions, we scarcely know what we are eating; we can afford to 

 ride instead of walk, and so are losing the power to take that bracing 

 and exhilirating form of exercise; we are trying to crowd the work of 

 years into days, until the pace we have set for ourselves is not so far 

 behind that of the woman who said to her companion at a formal dinner, 

 "Be quick and tell me how the world was made while the plates are 

 being changed." In these and in many other ways we have departed from 

 the quieter and saner methods of living and "How to meet these changed 

 conditions," becomes the problem of the house and homekeepers of today. 



Before we set about improving ourselves as housewives, we must first 

 be convinced that there is need for improvement and that we are neither 

 doing our work in the best nor yet the easiest way, for scientific house- 

 keeping is first of all easy housekeeping and "the woman who wears her- 

 self to shreds and tatters keeping house, has the case proven against her 



