Euthenics, the science of controllable environment Part 7

The economy of right uses depends largely upon the home-maker, and brings the return in health, happiness, and efficiency.[14]

[14] Motto, Mary Lowell Stone Home Economics Exhibit, Jamestown Exposition, 1907.

CHAPTER VI

_The child to be educated in the light of sanitary science.

Office of the school. Domestic science for girls. Applied science. The duty of the higher education. Research needed._

No Christian and civilized community can afford to show a happy-go-lucky lack of concern for the youth of today; for, if so, the community will have to pay a terrible penalty of financial burden and social degradation in the tomorrow.

_President Roosevelt, Message to Congress, December, 1904._

The loss of faith brings us by a short cut straight to the loss of purpose in life--of any purpose, at least, beyond purely material ones. To those who need money the duty of getting it first and above anything else becomes the gospel of life. To those who feel the need of position, whether in society, business, or elsewhere, their gospel drives them to all means within the law to attain that. To those who have both money and position comes the only remaining purpose in life--that of using them for an existence of amus.e.m.e.nt and enjoyment. Is it too much to say that never before in our history have such aspirations so completely dominated and limited such large cla.s.ses?

What is the poor American to do in his present fever and with his present nerves, but with fivefold greater powers placed in his hands and fivefold greater attention and capacity demanded for their control? If sixty years ago the free forces and rushing advance of the republic urgently needed the regulation of a powerful and learned conservative body, who can overestimate the necessity for such service now?

When you ask how it is to be rendered, one cannot be mistaken in turning first to those priceless qualities in any sound national life whose tendency to decay we noted at the outset. Give back to us our faith. Give back to us a serious and worthy purpose. Restore sane views of life, of our own relations to it, and of our relations to those who share it with us.

_Whitelaw Reid, Phi Beta Kappa address, 1903._

CHAPTER VI

THE HOME AND THE SCHOOL

One must not displace the other, for one cannot replace the other, but rather the home and the school must react on each other. The home is the place in which to gain the experience, and the school the place in which to acquire the knowledge that shall illuminate and crystallize the experience. The child should go out to the school with enthusiasm, and return to the home filled with a deeper interest and desire to realize things.

In morals and manners the school can only give tendency or direction to the child's life. The school is not the best place to teach ethics.

In the family life the child himself finds his future revealed, reflected by his relations to other members of the family. The spirit of cooperation nurtured there will develop in the school through the more various opportunities of relationship to others.

The earlier conditions cannot be restored, even the home training cannot be brought back, except on the farm, and there, it is hoped, it may be revived. The city or suburban children cannot have the opportunity to pick up chips when too young to bring in wood; cannot stand by and hold skeins of yarn, or go to the barn and help feed the calves--all most interesting and provocative of endless questions.

They cannot go into the garden and pick berries or vegetables for dinner, cannot learn how to avoid breaking the vines, or how to judge the ripeness of the melons.

All that is probably not feasible for many, because it is not possible to give children of this age responsibility without oversight, and today's elders are loath to give and are often incapable of giving oversight.

But while these circ.u.mstances over which, apparently, we have no control, preclude much of the valuable outdoor work, food has still to be prepared, dishes need washing, and clothes must be mended, even if towels and napkins are no longer hemmed by hand. Rooms are still swept and dusted, beds are made, and chairs and tables put straight.

Has any better means of giving experience ever been devised than these small, daily tasks which differentiate men from animals? The care of the fixed habitation, the foresight needed to prepare the things for the family life in the weeks and months to come, the cooperation of all the members of the family toward one common end--all tend toward high _human ideals_. If the wise mother only realized the value to the child of helping in such portions as are not too heavy, of being a part of the life, she would let nothing stand in the way of using this natural means of development. But with foreign domestics whose idea is to get the various duties over as soon as possible, and whose gift is not that of teaching, how is the child to grow into the normal ways of right daily living, unconsciously and effectively?

If the parents continue to throw all the work of education on the school, then the school must take the best means of fulfilling the task.

Not only has the home put the burden of education on the school, but the school has drawn the child away from the home. The school of today demands much more from him than the school of the early New England days. It has taken the time that was formerly given to a.s.sisting in the duties of the household; it has taken from the home the interest and responsibility that were developed through the cooperation in the family life. School has taken the place of home in the child's thoughts. In the morning the thought is of reaching school in time, not of the home duties whose performance could lighten many a mother's burden.

The school, hurried with a curriculum that is wasteful of time and energy, lacking correlation in the studies (except in a few schools that are noted exceptions proving the rule), has little time to relate its work to the home as the kindergarten does in its morning talk; so there must come an intermediate step in order that the school may emphasize the home life and industries, and that a generation may grow up who shall have a knowledge of the daily needs of life.

The interest awakened in the school will surely react upon the home.

It is like an expedition going out to make discoveries and to bring back knowledge to its own land. The directive work of the school will thus become a practical realization in the home. Then the cycle will be complete, for while the school has separated the child from his natural environment for many hours and weeks, it is sending him back better equipped through knowledge and experience to fulfill his place there.

How shall the ends be gained artificially by devices of the school?

For gained they must be, if civilization is to be maintained.

To quote from Isabel Bevier:

"As the home is so inseparably connected with the house, and our comfort and efficiency are so greatly influenced by the kind of houses in which we live, much of interest and importance centers in the study of the house."

Moreover, with the house, its evolution, decoration, and care, may be a.s.sociated much that is interesting in history, art, and architecture, as well as much that has a direct bearing on the daily life of the individual.

The philosophers have struggled for centuries, each contributing according to his experience and vision to determine what is the purpose of life. America's thought could be translated into the word efficiency. Yes, we might almost say she worships efficiency. If, then, efficiency is to be the goal, what are the means to develop it?

Efficiency depends chiefly upon good health, and to maintain this we must first consider in the scheme of education the physical aids--food, air, water, clothing and shelter, exercise and rest--and with this goal in view must come also recreation, play or amus.e.m.e.nt, and beauty to develop the mental and the spiritual. In relating our scheme of work to this ideal we will consider first the shelter.

The children of ten or twelve years of age have pa.s.sed the "make-believe" stage of play; they want the "real," but of their own kind and age. After little children have made and played with toys and foreshadowed the needs of the actual home, the time has come for the youth to have his demands, which are not yet the demands of man and manhood.

At the Tuberculosis Congress, held in Washington in 1908, a sanatorium in England, which won a prize, presented among many good features a system of graded work with graded tools, almost childlike implements for the weak and unskilled, gradually advancing toward the normal as the strength and health of the man grew. So it should be with the material we should give to the children.

After the toy age a house about two-thirds the ordinary sized house may be constructed. A room seven feet square is very livable for a child. Three rooms is a very good working plant--the kitchen and the bedroom, the dining and living room combined. Both boys and girls may cooperate in planning, building, and furnishing this home.

The plan of a modern house may be drawn, basing it on the knowledge of house architecture through history, of the modification necessary to site through geography, and the knowledge that science has brought of drainage, ventilation, and construction. The house could be built by the manual training cla.s.s, or if that is not feasible it may be built by one of the firms making portable houses. At all events, it can be painted by the children, and this will lead to lessons on color, the use of paint and its composition.

While the "shelter" is being constructed the child must be considering at the same time the principles of caring for the home, for this would naturally influence the thought of furnishing. The simply furnished home means less physical exertion, but not less beauty. The home planned and executed on scientific principles of hygiene and sanitation means a healthful home, a much cleaner home.

The shelter of the individual has been considered; now comes the immediate protection of the child--its clothing. It would not be quite practical in this little home to enter into the personal activities of bathing and dressing. A very large doll, approximating the child, may be used, one large enough so that it can wear boots, stockings, etc., that are usually bought for the real child. Here can be taught also the lesson in wise spending.

The right care of the body must be included among the necessities of education. The teaching of the principles of hygiene should be closely related to the lives of the children. Correct habits, not rules, are the proper prevention for all sorts of defects. To secure and maintain a healthy body, habits of cleanliness and enthusiasm for health must be inculcated. Such habits can be readily impressed on the body while it is plastic--that is, while it is young; but they are acquired only with difficulty and by much thought in after years. Hence there is the greatest economy of time and energy in accustoming young people to habits of daily living which will give them the best chance in after life--the chance to be "healthy, happy, efficient human beings." Most of the teaching must be by indirect methods--ill.u.s.trations--and so the doll may be used again to demonstrate and relate facts about the daily life.

An old Scotch writer once said, "He that would be good must be happy, and he that would be happy must be healthy." As has already been said, the great increase of disease from causes under individual control, such as that which is brought on by errors of diet, points to a need for a more general education in this respect. The food problem is fundamental to the welfare of the race. Society, to protect itself, must take cognizance of the questions of food and nutrition. It is necessary to give the child the right ideas on these subjects, for only then will there be sufficient effort to get the right kind of food and to have it clean. Right living goes further and demands the right manner of serving and eating the food. The home table should be the school of good manners and of good food habits of which the child ought not to be deprived.

If all the foregoing principles have been developed, if the child has been led to see the joy of living through these home activities, he will consider the home the true shelter, the place where he can have the happiest play, the easiest rest, where he can study most earnestly, and express himself most honestly.

And the parents, the fathers and mothers of children of the city? How far are we helping the city dwellers to take advantage of city life?

The principles back of housekeeping are the same, the end the same--what are to be the means to stimulate the modern home-maker?

Show the possibilities within reach of them; send the children home with ideas which the mother must consider.

Education in pursuing the so-called "humanities" has been holding up to view a hypothetical man in a hypothetical environment.

The pursuit of gold has not been hindered thereby, and has gone on without the restraints of education because of the complete detachment of ideals inculcated from the actual daily life where money meant personal pleasure and comfort for the time being.

The power over things gained by a few students was utilized by money power to hasten all progress. Speed was the watchword. No one could stop to see what injury he had caused. "Get there," really seemed to be the motto. In this scramble for power the "purpose" for which life is lived has been lost sight of. No "worthy aim" has been impressed on the mind of the child.

An awakening has come and the school is the leading factor in the upward movement. Education is coming to have a new meaning, or better, perhaps, is going back to the older meaning with new materials. No knowledge or power the youth may acquire will avail in real struggle for existence of the race without a definite aim to hold steady the eye fixed on a certain goal. This is a law of man's existence.

The change in point of view has been growing like a root underground.