and a third for the college. The differentiation between these types promises to grow more marked since home economics has become an integral part of the curriculum and has been deemed worthy of college credit.

The elementary school treats of the duties of home making in a very practical way. The best methods of carrying on the simple household industries are taught. The child who completes the eighth grade in a school where a good course in home economics has been given can keep the house in sanitary condition, prepare simple meals and do plain sewing neatly. In the rural schools where a special home economics teacher is not available, the regular teacher often accomplishes much by inspiring her children to take an active interest in the profession of the housekeeper. She may correlate the work closely with other subjects in the curriculum and help to give an added dignity to the work of the housekeeper by making clear its place in relation to other social activities. Since 58 per cent of the children of the nation attend rural schools, the work which is being done in home economics by the rural teacher is of special significance.

In the high school a scientific background is provided for the practical work of the grades. The student is enabled to work out new methods, to establish ideals, and to determine the best means of attaining these ideals in the home. Her course includes additional phases of sewing, cooking and housewifery, which may have been previously studied in the grades, and to them are added dietetics, textiles, dressmaking, laundering, home nursing, care of babies, household accounts and household management, or a possible variation of any one of these. Economics, sociology and the sciences of biology, physics, chemistry and bacteriology, are recognized as closely related to the special home economics course. The high school girl is prepared to keep house under varying conditions, to adjust herself to changes, and to enter upon a life of growth and service.

College courses further develop the courses offered in high school. The girl of more mature mind is ready for experiments and investigation of all sorts. This is the phase of the subject that has not yet been adequately worked out and to the development of which an eager interest is directed,

THE GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT

Today home economics is taught in all of our state agricultural colleges to which women are admitted; in practically all of our state normal schools, and in more than three thousand high and grade schools. It has become a popular course in private schools but is not yet included in the curricula of the leading women's colleges. Correspondence courses of collegiate grade are carried on by four state institutions. In four states, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Iowa and Indiana, the teaching of home economics in all public schools is required by law. In many of the normal schools brief courses are required of all women students to give them a broader perspective for their general teaching, to enable them to introduce courses in the rural schools, and to prepare them for housekeeping.

State supervisors of home economics have been appointed in four states. Eleven other states have some special system of home economics supervision. Twenty-three states have prepared courses of study in home economics for the common schools. For the most part parents are eager to have their children avail themselves of the privilege of pursuing such courses. The work involved is of quite as high a standard as in other school subjects, and special teachers are making every effort to keep abreast of the times and to be informed on all that tends toward better homemaking.

The funds made available by the Smith-Lever Act have led to a great increase in the amount of extension teaching in the rural districts. Women's clubs and other organizations are furthering the study of homemaking in towns and cities. The public press recognizes the movement as of universal interest. Combination of all these forces is helping to bring about a new era in which the study of home life and woman's work in the home is to receive the consideration that its importance merits. The campaign which is to accomplish this end has from the first been a campaign of education supported by all the forces that speak for progress.

EDUCATION FOR PARENTHOOD

BY THOMAS C. BLAISDELL, PH.D.,

Dean of the School of the Liberal Arts in the Pennsylvania State College.

Approximately one million, one hundred thousand marriages will be solemnized in the United States in 1916.1 In the families thus begun perhaps three million children will be born during the next six or eight years. One out of five of these children, or about 600,000 of them, will die within a year of birth, and another 150,000 before the fifth birthday. The right kind of education for the duties of parenthood in elementary and high schools, colleges, and "continuation" classes would cut this startling total to perhaps 75,000, if one may judge from what has been accomplished in a few localities by efficient coöperation among health agencies.

2

Herbert Spencer in What Knowledge is of Most Worth wonders whether a puzzled antiquarian of a remote future, finding nothing except our school books and college examinations, would not conclude that our courses of study were only for celibates and monastic orders, and later he says, "When a mother is mourning over a firstborn when she is prostrate under the pangs of combined grief and remorse, it is but a small consolation that she can read Dante in the original." One might add today that she will find but small consolation in the algebra, Latin, German and ancient history which she has "taken" in high school, and in the "pure" science and psychology, advanced mathematics and foreign language, theories of ethics and of logic, which she has been required to pursue in order to secure a B.A. degree. Might she not wisely ask:

What have these subjects done to prepare me for the MA degree, surely the degree which every woman should covet? Would it not have been possible to "apply" my chemistry to food values and food combinations, and my psychology and ethics to the training of children, and to substitute courses in "Training for Parenthood" for the required work in foreign language, mathematics and philosophy? Would it not be wisdom to make these traditional subjects elective, and to require a subject which is really fundamental in the education of all?

'The latest statistics available are for 1906, when 853,290 marriages took place, or 39 per cent more than in 1896, when 613,873 marriages occurred. The same rate of increase would give 1,086,063 marriages in 1916.

2See Professor Irving Fisher's National Vitality.

Would not such subject matter result in a kind of clear thinking, which is not now being done in our traditional high school and college subjects? Would it not be possible, even in the upper grades, to "apply" the physiology and hygiene and to substitute really "human worth" subjects for technical grammar and much arithmetic, in order that those who never will enter high school may have some training for parenthood? Further, is not the boy and youth and young man as much entitled to such training as is his sister?

Three questions perhaps should be answered, namely, (1) What is now being done in elementary schools, high schools, colleges and continuation classes toward educating for the duties of parenthood? (2) What should be done? (3) What can be done as a beginning?

WHAT IS NOW BEING DONE

Rural schools, graded schools, high schools, and even colleges are beginning to realize that food values, cooking and sewing should have a place in courses of study because of their practical worth, and as a result domestic science and art are being widely introduced. Whenever these subjects are taught in a way so practical that they will function in the laborer's house as well as in the home of the prosperous merchant, they may be truly said to contribute to the right kind of education for parenthood.

There are, however, two real dangers in the teaching of these subjects. There is doubtless much truth in the criticism that such work has its foundations in the clouds rather than on solid earththat more attention is given to lace and fudge and angel's food than to kitchen aprons and bread or to economical buying and balanced menus. Furthermore, are not teachers, capable of the best work, too often hampered by tradition and by the thought of exhibits and examinations? And finally is there not too much emphasis placed on the logical presentation of subjects? Some colleges, for example, keep young women studying general chemistry, food chemistry, etc., for two years, before allowing them to enter the sacred precincts of the cooking laboratory. By this time a third of the young women have tired of the treadmill of theory and have. gone home. The trouble with this sort of teaching is that life is not logical, and no dictum of the schoolmaster can make it logical. In life we do, and by doing learn the theory of doing that makes us

more efficient in doing the same thing again. Education based first of all on logic is seldom if ever efficient education.

In Hartford, Connecticut, Montclair, New Jersey, and in other cities girls in the upper grades are taught to bathe and care for babies. In a few high schools day nurseries are maintained, thus giving girls an opportunity, to learn something of the care of infants. Many schools by physical examinations are emphasizing the care of teeth, of eyes, and of the general health. If the thought of using such information in their own homes is kept ever prominent such work is excellent training for the duties of parenthood.

In many schools play is supervised. Games and folk dances thus learned may be made splendid education for use in the home. A few high schools are teaching something of eugenics; others are teaching sex hygiene. Not many are teaching applied ethics, though the work of Professor F. C. Sharp of the University of Wisconsin along this line is having a manifest effect in that state and even more widely.

Perhaps more direct work is being done in continuation classes than anywhere else. These are maintained by many schools, as well as by Christian Associations and other organizations in districts populated largely by the foreign born. The work done in them in training mothers to feed their children wisely and to care for them properly is notably efficient.

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE

To answer this, consider first what the young man and young woman should be when they come to marriage. Physically they should be so developed that every muscle and every organ functions normally. They should understand the heredity, the food, the fresh air, the exercise and the moderation that make for such physique. Mentally they should be normal, and should know enough of eugenics to understand the grave danger of marriage on the part of the mentally deficient. Morally and spiritually, the more nearly they approach the teachings of Jesus, the better. They should know sex hygiene, and should have at least general ideas of food values for babies and children; of when to send for the doctor and what to do until he comes; of the symptoms of common diseases; of the value of work and play and rest and sleep and moderation; of the mental development of children; of the ethical and moral training of chil