HOUSEHOLD ARTS IN EDUCATION 2851 HOUSEHOLD ARTS IN EDUCATION 



so as to guide them in their later home life. 

 Household arts is also especially important as 

 a vocational study for the girl, since skill in 

 this field is not only a means of earning money 

 after leaving school but later has a direct prac- 

 tical value in her own home in case of mar- 

 riage; other vocational training of the girl, as 

 in industry, ordinarily becomes useless when 

 she marries and becomes a home-maker. 



How Household Arts Came into the School. 

 The household arts are part of a new school 

 program, that of vocational education, which 

 would train every worker for his work, whether 

 it be that of the farm, the shop, the store or 

 the home. This is to be effected, not by cur- 

 tailing the individual's general or academic 

 education, but by adding to his general pur- 

 pose. Thus household arts as vocational train- 

 ing is a supplement to, not a substitute for, the 

 general education of the girl. Beginning with 

 the Industrial Education Commission of Mas- 

 sachusetts in 1906, which resulted in a law 

 giving state aid to vocational instruction in 

 agriculture, the industries and household arts, 

 special legislation has since been adopted in 

 about twenty states, and every state has felt 

 the impulse of the movement for establishing 

 vocational schools. The United States Con- 

 gress has recently voted large appropriations 

 for teaching agriculture and household arts in 

 rural districts. In the last few years there 

 has thus come about a rapid extension of 

 household arts teaching on the vocational 

 basis. / 



But influences other than the vocational edu- 

 cation movement have helped to bring house- 

 hold arts into the schools. Manual training, or 

 simple hand activities, introduced as a supple- 

 ment to book study, and intended to improve 

 general education rather than give vocational 

 efficiency, came into many schools, beginning 

 about 1880, with a program that included cook- 

 ing and sewing for girls. A fundamental in- 

 fluence favoring household arts teaching has 

 been the modern application of natural science, 

 chemistry, physics and biology to practical af- 

 'fairs. As early as 1857 Youman's Handbook 

 of Household Science outlined the relations of 

 various sciences to the household, and to-day 

 there is a great and growing body of scientific 

 knowledge available for teaching in household 

 arts courses. 



The modern social-welfare movement, which 

 would assure to every person the essentials 

 of a decent living by reducing the causes of 

 misery and promoting the conditions of well- 



being, has helped secure a place for household 

 arts. The first widespread organization of such 

 instruction was the philanthropic "kitchen- 

 garden" classes, beginning about 1876; to-day 

 the social-work aspect of household arts is in- 

 creasing through settlement classes, housekeep- 

 ing centers, visiting housekeepers to teach bet- 

 ter ways of living, factory and store welfare 

 work, school centers and rural community 

 work. Household arts education has also re- 

 ceived an impetus from the woman's move- 

 ment, so-called, for as woman's interests have 

 received a hearing in law, business, politics and 

 other fields, the household, which is woman's 

 great vocational field, has had recognition in 

 the schools. Primarily, then, the household 

 arts in education are a result of the new 

 vocational education movement, but manual 

 training, the application of science to practical 

 affairs, the recognition of woman's interests and 

 the modern emphasis on social welfare have 

 each helped to open the way. 



The Educational Program. Preparation for 

 home life has long been one of the aims of 

 education, as in the kindergarten, which has 

 chosen its gifts and games to illustrate home, 

 church, and state, and in the modern ele- 

 mentary school, which introduces informational 

 lessons from the child's world of home, street 

 and playground. Household arts study, how- 

 ever, has brought into the school the practical 

 processes involved in housekeeping and the 

 systematic knowledge underlying them. As 

 organized in typical schools, one finds in the 

 first six grades simple lessons in cooking and 

 sewing, which are often given to boys and girls 

 alike. Sometimes this is part of a compre- 

 hensive program of activities chosen from farm, 

 shop, store and home, to give industrial and 

 social knowledge for later intelligent choice 

 of a vocation. In the last grades of the ele- 

 mentary school and in the high school, the 

 girls usually study cooking, sewing and house- 

 work, intensively, with the aim of acquiring 

 vocational knowledge and skill. In all house- 

 hold arts teaching, two elements enter theory, 

 or the explanation of processes, and practice, 

 or exercises for the sake of skill ; emphasis may 

 be on theory or on practice, according to the 

 purpose of a particular course. However, in 

 vocational instruction the final aim is skill 

 in the profession of home-making, or in some 

 special vocation related to household arts, such 

 as cooking, dressmaking, millinery or manage- 

 ment. Some courses go to the other extreme 

 and emphasize scientific explanations. 



