194 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ceive letters asking if we have not a young woman that is trained 

 to take charge of institutional work, cooking, sewing, supervision 

 of diet and things of that sort. 



There are two things we are endeavoring to do for these girls: 

 the first is to make the girl love the home on the farm, the second 

 is to make her efficient in that home. I am of the opinion that the 

 reason why people leave the country in the numbers they do is 

 because the women of the farm are not happy and contented; they 

 are not satisfied on the farm. The excuse often given is that if they 

 go to town they will have a better opportunity for education. I 

 think that is not altogether true, for the system of education in the 

 city is not all they think it is. 



Our first endeavor is to make the girl happy in the farm home, 

 and the course of study seems to have been well designed for that. 

 As you already know, the girls get a great deal in plant life and ani- 

 mal life, they study agriculture, horticulture, gardening and animal 

 husbandry, and quite a good deal in the dairy. This instruction is 

 not given that they may become farmers, that is not at all the in- 

 tention, but rather it is that they may become sympathetic with farm 

 life because they understand the business of the farm. If you 

 do not understand a subject, if you are not in sympathy with a 

 movement, you will have very little interest in it, and it is just so 

 with a girl in farm life. I have asked a number of girls who had 

 been with us six months when they again returned to school, "How 

 did the farm look to you during vacation?" And almost invariably 

 the answer is, "It was a different farm the last time I was home; I 

 saw more in it than I ever saw before." We try to create a love 

 for the farm. 



In the second place, we endeavor to make the girls efficient in 

 the farm home. In addition to those studies already named they 

 have studies that refer in particular to home making. Of course, 

 you are aware that we give a most excellent course in cookery, 

 three years under Miss Shepperd. A girl who takes that course, if 

 she has any intelligence whatever, will have a practical knowledge 

 of cookery. 



Mrs. Blair gives a three-year course in sewing. The student is 

 not only taught the stitch and seam, but she is taught about judg- 

 ing materials, fabrics, textiles and so on, so that she may buy with 

 judgment things that are suitable for her station in life. If a wo- 

 man has the knowledge to select materials that are suitable and 

 durable, it adds very much to her efficiency in the family. Many 

 people are inclined to buy things that are not worth the money they 

 spend for them, because not of good color or of good material suit- 



