6o4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



attained solely through the remedy here offered t. e., the extension and 

 proper teaching of the manual arts. The problem is much too vast to 

 admit of any such simple solution. It must be attacked from a hun- 

 dred angles. The resources of science, education, politics, religion and 

 art will have to be marshaled to this purpose as they have not yet 

 been. There must be persistent and intelligent effort directed at every 

 opening. No one measure nor any set of measures will suffice, and 

 therefore in presenting the claims of the manual arts for recognition in 

 this work let it be understood that no specific, or panacea, is advocated. 



Let us consider, however, the contribution which domestic science 

 is capable of making toward this end, and for our purpose let us con- 

 ceive of domestic science in the broadest possible sense, including all 

 the internal factors that go to mold the home: household economics, 

 the science and art of preparing food, the hygienic oversight of the 

 domestic appointments, the elements of personal hygiene, and most 

 central of all, the care and instruction of young children. Where else 

 can we find an array of subjects promising so much for the well-being 

 of humanity? The problem of national vitality is a politico-social, 

 economic-industrial and medico-educational problem, hut it is first and 

 last a problem of the home. Tuberculosis is a disease of the home 

 rather than of the factory or shop, and can not be eliminated short of 

 a material regeneration of household conditions. Typhoid fever will 

 linger after the purification of all water supplies unless the hygiene of 

 the poorer homes is vastly improved. A quarter million of our babies 

 will continue to die every year regardless of progress in the affairs of 

 government, industry and science, unless prospective parents are liber- 

 ally educated in this most sacred and most difficult of all human duties. 



During all the years of plasticity before the child can be reached 

 directly by society through legal or educational measures it is wholly 

 at the mercy of the home. Perfect nutrition, for example, is the foun- 

 dation stone of happiness and morality as well as our chief defense 

 against disease; and nutrition is an affair of the home. Malnutrition 

 through the period of childhood permits no complete recovery. Effi- 

 ciency is more dependent upon food and the hygiene of the digestive 

 tract than upon any other one factor. The child that is permitted to 

 bolt its food at the domestic table is not very likely to profit greatly 

 from school instruction in the virtues of mastication. Not less than 

 five to ten per cent, of all school children suffer from imperfect nutri- 

 tion. They are the ones who develop most readily into nervous wrecks 

 or fall victims of contagious diseases. The hygiene of the mouth alone 

 is considered by Dr. Osier as important from the standpoint of health 

 as the alcohol question. Many of the most important contagious dis- 

 eases are ingested through this source. Most mouths will continue to 

 be unspeakably dirty until practises of oral hygiene are made habitual 



