560 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



way that horaemaking be practically a part of their heritage. Conditions 

 have changed since the time of our grandmothers, when homemaking was 

 practically all that was demanded of women. 



Today we ask not only that she shall be a good wife and mother, a good 

 homemaker, but that she be a good church woman, a good society woman, 

 a good club woman, a good citizen in the town in which she lives. And 

 these many duties have filled the lives of our women until they have little 

 time left for definite instruction to the daughters in the homes. The 

 daughters, too, have their lives filled with school duties, music and many 

 demands which are made upon them by the neighbor girls. This makes it 

 almost impossible for the mother to find time when she can have the 

 daughter at home to give her instruction in homemaking. 



A second way of teaching our girls homemaking comes through the 

 public schools . We learned years ago that it was much more economical for a 

 community to hire a teacher to teach all the children than it was to expect 

 each mother to teach her own. The same economy is found in teaching 

 homemaking. One teacher can teach thirty girls the principles of home- 

 making more easily than thirty mothers. If the work of domestic science is 

 put into the public schools, every girl will have some teaching in this line. 

 And who will question the usefuUness of this? 



Which will she use most in her life — knowledge of quadratics or know- 

 ledge of yeast? Which will be of more value to her — knowledge of ancient 

 history or the knowing how to prepare a good wholesome meal? ^ 



Will she not give thanks, in the the coming years, for knowledge of the 

 fabrics of which her clothing is made or her house decorated, much more 

 than for the knowledge of German or her ability to translate a few Greek 

 sentences? In no sense would I give the impression that I undervalue the 

 studies in the schools. The more our girls have the better, but — certainly 

 a knowledge of homemaking will give her more power for the duties that 

 will come into her life than will the knowledge of any other one branch. 



It is her right to have this knowledge and we owe to the girls in every 

 community the training that will make them most useful and most helpful 

 in the coming years. All this supposes that we are a unit in believing that 

 a girl should know something of homemaking before she comes into her 

 own home. 



We have a right to believe this if we look at every other kind of business 

 carried on in this country. 



No man trusts a banker who has not had a banking training. Not one of 

 us would ask to have a prescription put up at a drug store unless someone 

 in the store has had a druggist's training. 



We do not trust our lives in the hands of a physician who has had no 

 medical training. We do not even want to hear a man preach unless he has 

 had theological training. Our clothing must be made by a practiced dress- 

 maker. We send our children to schools presided over by trained teachers. 

 Is it right, or just, or wise, or profitable to ask a girl to make a home, and 

 to care for the physical, mental and spiritual growth of a family without giv- 

 ing her some help toward making that work easy for her and giving her 

 power to make her work accomplish the best results possible? 



I leave you to answer this question. 



