The Well-Order ed Household 



FROM THE STANDPOINT OF A PRACTICAL WOMAN 

 CONDUCTED BY MARTHA VAN RENSSELAER 



Editor Cornell University Eeading Course for Women. 



THE HOME-KEEPER'S RELATION TO THE SCHOOL 



THE early breakfast, the filling of the 

 school dinner-pail, the picking up of 

 books, pencils, and mittens, the parting 

 admonitions, are familiar experiences in the 

 ^Yell-ordered household. The house is quiet with- 

 out the children during the day, but they come 

 trudging home after school full of their sports, 

 their troubles, and their varied experiences. 



It is a fortunate mother who knows that 

 while the child is absent everything is right 

 at school and on the way thither. It is hardly 

 to be expected nor desired that she will take the 

 trouble to acquaint herself with the methods 

 used in teaching her children, since that is a 

 study all by itself, requiring time to become 

 proficient and to keep up to date. However, she 



HARD TRAVELING ON THE ROAD TO KNOWLEDGE 



may readily ask herself, Is the schoolroom home- 

 like, cheerful, comfortable, and sanitary? 



Without these qualities the child is deprived 

 of a privilege which is his right. The standard 

 of cleanliness, with cheerful and esthetic sur- 

 roundings maintained by the school, will deter- 

 mine in great measure that of the homes of the 

 little people when grown to home-keeping age. 



A little girl accustomed at school to see a 

 teacher who lacks care in her personal appear- 

 ance, or the girl who is allowed to keep her 

 desk untidy, or who sees the floor covered with 

 dust and paper, is unconsciously fashioning her 

 id^as of future housekeey^ing. 



There are officers elected to supervise and 

 control the interests of the common schools, but 

 there are many things, to be done for the school 

 which the women are fitted to undertake. 



The schoolroom should be homelike. Take 

 away books, and to many there is left a cheerless 

 home. A schoolroom likewise without library 

 books is lacking in an equipment necessary for 

 good work and pleasure in study. Kemove from 

 the home doorway plants, shrubbery, the fine 

 old trees, and home-sickness will follow. Has 

 the school-yard a lawn, a generous foliage, 

 shrubbery, and plants? If not, it is as cheerless 

 as the home doorway without the Eose bush, 

 Peony, Lilac, or Pines. A school doorway with 

 an overhanging Eose bush, a beautiful Ivy 

 twining over the old woodshed, flowers and 

 shrubbery in the yard, all add to the esthetic 

 influence of the school. 



A mother should visit the school. Has she 

 been there recently to see whether the interests 

 of the children are being well cared for? No? 

 Then doubtless she is busy, or she has a great 

 deal of confidence in the teacher. There have been 

 some bright boys and girls educated in that 

 little schoolhouse where perhaps she herself went 

 to school some time, and her boys and girls 

 are quite as promising as any. The school does 

 not need so ' much her attention to the school 

 program as her encouragement, her watchful- 

 ness for the health of the children, and that 

 teacher and parent may work together in the 

 interests of the child. 



It is desirable that the teacher become ac- 

 quainted ivith the families in the district. The 

 teacher is often a hero or heroine in the life of 

 the child, who drinks in every word, copies the 

 style and establishes a standard for himself 

 according to the tastes and habits of the teacher. 

 If he is a worthy example he can exert much 

 more of a certain kind of influence in the home 

 and in the social circle than in the schoolroom. 

 One of the best things to do for the children of 

 a home is to invite the teacher into it. If the 

 teacher comes with a culture, a refinement which 

 is so desirable in one of her occupation, she will 

 lend to the home a most salutary influence. 



But what of the surroundings where the child 



