where the teacher must leave the school a club of children gardeners may be organized in June, with a trustee or, preferably, a farmer acting as patron and accompanying the children to the school once a week at an appointed hour. Some teachers arrange for home gardens instead of school gardens, all plats being visited two or three times during the vacation by the teacher or school trustees. In the Province of Ontario teachers and trustees are warned not to begin a garden unless they are certain it will not be neglected during the summer vacation. Where previous experience has shown that a garden can not be expected to continue successfully during the vacation, it is advised that the ground be seeded down. Where the garden is to be undertaken for the first time the best security for care will be the community interestparents, trustees, the local branch of the women's institute, and expupils should be consulted in the work. In Manitoba many children regularly visit their plats during vacation and keep them in condition; many parents also visit the garden; the trustees of many schools meet Saturday afternoons and round up the village children to accompany them to the school grounds to perform the necessary weeding, etc.; in some schools committees are appointed for each week of the vacation, each committee in turn being held responsible; competitions and exhibitions both in rural localities and in town have solved the weed problem in hundreds of districts. As between the methods, of placing all the responsibility for the vacation care of gardens upon the pupils or relieving them of all responsibility, the director of elementary agricultural education of British Columbia advocates a middle course by making two definite appointments at the close of the school in June, viz, (1) a garden day (or half day) to be observed by the pupils weekly during the months of July and August, and (2) a garden manager or supervisor who will be in attendance at the garden that day of each week in succession. He should be appointed by the school board, and should be not only in sympathy with the work, but also conversant with the teacher's method of conducting it. In a small garden three hours a week, preferably in the morning, will be sufficient, but in large gardens eight hours a week may be found necessary. One hour a week is usually sufficient for each pupil to spend in actual garden work.

CHAPTER XVI.

HOME ECONOMICS.

By Mrs. HENRIETTA CALVIN and CARRIE A. LYFORD, Specialists in HomeEconomics, Bureau of Education.

INTRODUCTION.

The efforts of educators throughout the country to direct the education of girls toward preparation for home making have begun to show fruition in many ways. An interest in the work of the home maker has been awakened in a measure in all classes of society and among women of all ages. Women have begun to prepare themselves for many of the vocations related to home making. In the schools special courses to cover these new lines of work have developed. While there has been a steady increase in the number of schools offering instruction in home economics and in the length of home economics courses, the most marked advance has been in the type of course offered and in the standards of instruction that have been established. Some schools continue to be satisfied with a home economics department that does not rank with other courses offered and that plays no rôle in the life of the school. However, State legislation, faculties that appreciate the relation that home education bears to general education, and popular sentiment are making very definite demands of the schools, and a high grade of home economics teaching is resulting. Material aids have never been so numerous as at the present time, and the wide-awake teacher finds illustrative and literary material that will be of assistance for almost every subject that she expects to teach. Moreover, she is learning that her best laboratory is the home, the shop, and the market of her immediate community. Therefore she is striving to tie up her work to the problems at hand. Schools of education and systems of city supervision are going to be the most potent factors in the development of educational methods in home economics, while colleges and universities are developing the subject matter in its scientific and economic relationships. Many of the smaller schools have been handicapped by the lack of trained teachers and inadequate funds. Where the earnestness of the teacher has been great enough to demand

better conditions for home economics teaching, the smaller schools have contributed much toward the development of the movement. There are before Congress two bills of special importance to those interested in home economics: The so-called Smoot bill, for the support of organized home economics experiment stations, and the Smith-Hughes bill, making appropriations for the assistance of teacher-training in home economics and the encouragement of vocational education.

HOME ECONOMICS IN THE SURVEYS.

An indication of the attitude of mind of those interested in educational questions may be observed in the position assigned to home economics in several of the recent educational surveys. Home economics received special consideration in the survey of Iowa's higher educational institutions. In the survey of San Francisco's public school system the entire time of one investigator was devoted to those lines of work intended to train girls in the art of home making. To the subjects of "household arts and school luncheons" was given an entire monograph in the Cleveland survey.

In the survey of the Iowa State-supported institutions of higher education the effort was made to define the functions of home economics in land-grant colleges, State universities, and State normal schools where these institutions are not directly connected nor located upon the same campus. The commission declares:

In view of reasons elsewhere set forth in this report the commission considers it unwise to develop at the State university courses in home economics leading to degrees. The proper function of the department in the scheme of university instruction should be that of a service department. Because of both its practical and its cultural value, the continuance of home economics on this basis is amply justified in any institution frequented by women. That courses in the subject not only afford useful training in the arts and sciences involved in the maintenance of efficient homes, but that their content tends to broaden and humanize the experience of women students is commonly recognized. A certain amount of duplication in the fundamental lines of home economics teaching between the university and the State college is naturally unavoidable, as in the case of English and mathematics and other subjects generally held to be indispensable in both liberal and technical curricula. Unwarranted duplication can be prevented if the university department is kept from expanding beyond the limits of a service department.

Having regard to the definite differentiation of the university department from the department at the State college, where home economics constitutes one of the major lines of work, the development of courses for the training of highschool teachers of home economics should not be encouraged at the university. But there is another field which the university department, as it expands, may enter legitimately and consistently with the principles here enunciated. Although the demand for trained women as prescribing dietitians is new, it will apparently soon be considerable. If the State desires to create such courses they should be connected with the home economics department at the university.

This is not to be understood, however, as implying a recognition of professional courses in home economics at the university. The conjunction at the university of a department of home economics with a hospital and a medical school of the first rank presents an unusual opportunity for the development of this type of instruction.

In considering the work at the land-grant college, the following statements were made:

There are certain directions in which the division of home economics may be developed logically and consistently with the principles already emphasized in this report. The State board may appropriately encourage the enlargement at State college of facilities for preparing women for various positions of responsibility in dormitories, tea rooms, hospitals, and cafeterias. To this end it seems desirable that the college cafeteria be placed under the charge of the home economics division and as far as possible used as a practice place. The training of hospital dietitians, however, appears, in view of the considerations already mentioned, to be more fittingly the function of the university department of home economics in conjunction with the university hospital. The commission recommends that effective cooperation between the home economics division and the authorities in charge of women's dormitories be established. In addition to training high-school teachers of home economics, a task to which the State college is already committed, the institution may well respond to the growing demand for the preparation of teachers of this subject for trade and industrial schools.

There may be local or geographic conditions which will make necessary the modification of this pronouncement, but without question certain policies relating to the function of home economics instruction should be evolved. Many schools may frankly withdraw all attempts at teacher training in home economics and offer their courses in this subject as material properly finding placement in any or all plans of study prepared for women students.

Continued efforts have been made to lift the college and university courses in home economics to a higher level. It is the desire of many teachers to establish the requirements of one or more years of highschool home economics for entrance to the college courses in that line. of instruction. Were this requirement made, it would open the college courses to more liberal courses in the sciences and at the same time give merited recognition to the excellent instruction now given in high schools.

HOME ECONOMICS IN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES.

While certain courses usually classified under home economics have been offered at the University of California for several years, the fall semester, 1916, begins the existence of a definitely organized department of home economics. The courses will be of university grade and will be of the highest standard of work in home economics.

The summer school of 1916 of the University of California offered degree courses in home economics for the first time. The previous

summer-school courses in both food preparation and garment making were of college entrance grade only.

Johns Hopkins University has maintained for the past two summers regular courses in home economics designed to prepare the students for teachers' certificates specified by the recent Maryland law. Some of these courses not only meet the State-law requirement, but credit toward a B. S. degree of that institution.

The University of Georgia maintains well-organized summer courses in home economics, though only men are in attendance during the regular school year.

A department of home economics has been recently established in the University of Oklahoma, Norman, Okla.

Texas Christian University, located at Fort Worth, Tex., has inaugurated a new course in home economics.

The Curtis School of Home Economics at Akron, Ohio, is a unit of the Municipal University of Akron. This school is now offering a four years' course in home economics based upon a 15-unit entrance requirement.

The National School of Domestic Arts and Science, of Washington, D. C., has started the erection of a series of college buildings which call for the expenditure of a million dollars.

The Mother Craft School, New York, of which Miss Jean Read was in charge, closed its doors during the year. A reorganization is to be effected during the coming year.

The Polytechnic Institute of Auburn, Ala., which is the landgrant college for white students of Alabama, has a well-equipped laboratory in which instruction in home economics is given to summer school students.

The University of Louisiana inaugurated a department of home economics with headquarters in the new George Peabody Building at the opening of the fall semester, 1915-16.

At the third "Merchant short course" of the University of Kansas, given under the auspices of the university extension division at Lawrence, February 7 to 11, 1916, an audience varying from 100 to 250 men listened appreciatively to the daily talks given by the home economics department.

In the Connecticut College for Women, which has completed its first year of work, special attention has been given to the dietetics laboratory.

CONFERENCE OF HOME ECONOMICS TEACHERS EMPLOYED IN LAND-GRANT

COLLEGES.

The Commissioner of Education issued a call for a conference of home economics teachers in land-grant colleges to be held in Berkeley,