592 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



marriage as the one object of life, and find that making; and receiving 

 love is not the whole business of life before the age of twenty is reached, 

 it surely is a gain in one directi'on. But if, through educative process, 

 the intellect asserts its superiority to the heart qualities, and pure emo- 

 tion s frowned down, all that the most finisned education has given can 

 not make up for the loss. The girl who never dreams of having a home 

 of her own and some one at the head of it whom she can delight to honor 

 and love, is lacking in her feminine make up. 



To some the home woman seems as one who might have fitted cer- 

 tain narrow conditions of the past, or certain prosaic ones of the present, 

 but never the needs of progress. But the fact is, the needs of a home 

 and the qualifications of a home-maker stand first in importance, for the 

 toome is the indispensable base and background of human life. We come 

 out of it to do our human work, to act togteher for the service of society. 

 We go back to it for that rest and comfort that is so essential to our 

 health and happiness. 



Human life needs large social contact and expression, but it cannot 

 keep it up continually; it must go back for rest and refreshment to its 

 base — the home. 



So few women realize the possibilities for exercising the most 

 thoughtful energies in learning to be a home-maker. Opportunities for 

 developing scientific, intellectual and executive endowments to their full- 

 est scope is as present here as anywhere. Her home can and should be 

 the expression of her taste, and must prove the fact of her economy in 

 time, strength and money. She must not feel herself superior to the 

 most careful planning, n'or reject the most trifling maens toward accom- 

 plishing success in her home management. She should be proud of her 

 ability to make a ''nickle" go as far as possible — but ought not b« obliged 

 to make one nickle do the work of two — and so oil the machinery of ser- 

 vice that it seems to run itself. When the head of home affairs can ar- 

 rive at this point of experience she has reason to be proud of her man- 

 agement. 



It is possible for one who at the start did not possess the faculty or 

 running things smoothly to become through training sure and swift of 

 action that she can stand serene and happy, a very queen either in her 

 kitchen or her parlor. The wife and mother who thus conquers does not 

 reach the position without much discipline, many drawbacks and frequent 

 discouragements. But if she keeps always that great and blessed end in 

 view that, of holding the love and respect of husband, friends and chil- 

 dren, and of making her home the best place on earth for them, she will 

 win in the end; and the struggle to gain this end does not necessarily 

 mean the sacrifice of any worthy ambition. It rests with the woman 

 herself whether she shall stagnate or rust out intellectually and spiritu- 

 ally, or whether she shall extend the four walls of her home year by 

 year into statelier mansions for soul and mind. 



The home is the source not only of physical life but of all life. There 

 the intellect is born as well as the body, and there its first training is 

 received. In how many homes are the conditions that meet the tinv 

 growing intellect favorable to its development? The stupidity and dull- 



