CHAPTER IV 



HOME DEMONSTRATION WORK 



WHEN Dr. Seaman A. Knapp began the Demonstration 

 Work in east Texas in 1903 he managed to get the 

 farmers to make object lessons in the production of field crops. 

 Within a few years he had the boys conducting demonstrations 

 with crops and live stock. The men and boys were conducting 

 their operations on the farm at large. When his girls came 

 forward to do their share they instituted their little enter- 

 prises on the farmstead. They began in the garden, worked 

 in the backyard and then into the kitchen. Some would-be 

 friends wrote Dr. Knapp that he was making a mistake by 

 beginning in the garden with vegetables. They thought he 

 should begin on the front lawn with the growing of flowers. 

 History has revealed the wisdom of his plans. When the girl 

 worked into the home she was in the realm where woman is 

 queen. She entered a new relation of co-operation with 

 mother. The plan of the new education was approaching the 

 culmination. The system of education was being completed 

 because, when the partnership of the mother and daughter was 

 strengthened, the son and the father had been winning achieve- 

 ments, and now, the work of every member of the family was 

 coming to a focus in the home and on the farmstead. This, 

 in Dr. Knapp 's mind, was the consummation of the funda- 

 mentals of his purpose to reform rural life. 



It was in 1913 that the farm women's part in the Home 

 Demonstration Work began to assume such proportions as to 



[8i] 



