HOME ECONOMICS FOE SOUTHERN SCHOOLS. 3 



reducing the expenses of each student to as low as $5 to $6 a month 

 in some schools. In such cases the students may work one to two 

 hours daily, or self-supporting students may do extra work beyond 

 the stated requirement at so much per hour. This practical work 

 serves both to introduce the problems in agriculture and home 

 economics which are the basis of work in the classroom and furnishes 

 the field for their practical application. The daily routine in house- 

 work, unless it is supervised, however, is of no educational value; 

 it should be considered a part of the girls' laboratory work and 

 organized accordingly. 



Methods of teaching. — Early home economics, which was practical 

 cooking taught by definite recipes copied and followed by the stu- 

 dents, was soon modified both in the direction of "culture" by 

 adding informational material from geography, history, and nature 

 study, and in the direction of "science" by teaching applied chem- 

 istry and physics, i. e., the principles of these sciences with illustra- 

 tions drawn from the household. The latter plan really teaches 

 these sciences, however, and not home economics itself. It is now 

 recognized that home economics consists of a definite body of princi- 

 ples, which are best taught as a self-constituted science, i. e., as an 

 organized body of specific facts and principles, rather than as an 

 application of other sciences. The relation of the material to the 

 needs of the girls is in this way more definite and the approach of 

 the subject through the girls' own home experiences is more direct, 

 and the facts learned are better correlated with the needs of every- 

 day life. Using as the basis of the course, therefore, the principles 

 of home economics themselves, the teacher can by proper choice of 

 problems teach the child those facts which are likely to be useful 

 to her, presenting them in the order of their increasing difficulty. 



The next matter, that of determining the method by which these 

 problems are to be solved, or the presentation of the individual 

 lesson, is the point at which teachers of home economics are most 

 likely to fail. 



How not to teach is well illustrated by a lesson actually observed. 

 The problem was the freezing of water ice. How was it developed ? 

 As a first step which removed the necessity for any reasoning on 

 the part of the students, the complete directions were dictated, and 

 each girl took them down verbatim. No opportunity was given to 

 the students in working out this problem to formulate any principles 

 which could be applied to the making of water ices in general. Next 

 the work was parceled out and each girl was given one step in the 

 process, no one having a chance to follow the whole process through. 

 The amount of lemon juice and sugar was arbitrarily stated. The 

 students were not told that the amount of sugar should vary with 

 the acidity of the fruit they used, nor were they allowed to find 



