grant college home-economics teaching in the present decennium. It seems safe to prophesy that much of the technical training necessitated by the lack of skill in students arriving at the college will now be abandoned, and the public schools will be depended upon to provide this part of women's education. Furthermore, it is reasonable to expect that the social sciences will play a more prominent part in the education of land-grant college women than heretofore, and that they may become the dominant lines in future courses. The handicaps realized by land-grant college graduates, owing to their somewhat inadequate academic training, need no longer exist, for the time spent upon the acquisition of skill may well be replaced by increased emphasis upon the so-called cultural studies, and upon the social as well as the physical and biological sciences.

Chapter II

DEVELOPMENT OF THE FIELD OF HOME ECONOMICS

By ISABEL BEVIER

Professor Emeritus of Home Economics, University of Illinois

Home economics has many phases. It touches life at many points. A consideration of the phases developed in the land-grant colleges implies a study of home economics as a factor in the liberal education of women. A review of some of the salient facts concerning their education may help to a better appreciation of the part played in that development by the land-grant colleges.

The New England colonists were never indifferent to the education of boys, but the early grammar schools and colleges were not open to the girls of the seventeenth nor even the eighteenth century. Harvard College was founded in 1636 and Vassar College in 1865. The general attitude of New England on the subject of female education, until about 1825, is fairly represented by the action of the Town Council of Gloucester, Mass., which voted "to give two hours of instruction to girls because they are a tender and interesting branch of the community but hitherto have been neglected." A Philadelphia divine of that period, in his "Letters to Young Ladies," names as desirable qualities to be cultivated, "cheerfulness, a genteel person, a simple nature, delicacy, good manners, skill in fancy work, and a fund of hidden genteel learning." It is well perhaps to recall the names of Anne Hutcheson, Abigail Adams, and Susan B. Anthony as proof that something more than a "fund of hidden genteel learning" was needed to satisfy some women even in that day.

Among the contributions made to the education of women by women three names stand out clearly: Emma Willard, Mary Lyon, and Catherine Beecher. Under their guidance education for women took a definite shape. Mrs. Willard pleaded for State support and the all-round education. She taught, wrote, spoke, and was, as President Thwing says, "for 30 years the representative woman of her generation." Mary Lyon lived for the glory of God and considered education necessary. In order to save expense in securing it she devised the scheme for Mount Holyoke now known as "cooperative housekeeping." Catherine Beecher, with peculiar insight,

touched on the essentials in education for the home. She said it must be put on a scientific basis and studied as other sciences. She preached her doctrine in many parts of the country, wrote, and was instrumental in organizing the American Woman's Educational Association, whose purpose was to "aid in securing to American women a liberal education, honorable position, and remunerative employment," or, in the vocabulary of to-day, economic independence for women.

In the next decade little progress was made in education because the energies of both men and women were occupied in civil strife, but the leaven was working. Academies, seminaries, and public schools had made the public familiar with the idea of coeducation, which found expression in Oberlin College in 1833 and later at Antioch, Ohio, so that by 1865 several points seemed to be settled concerning the education of women: First, that it was a factor not. to be overlooked in any educational scheme; second, that something more than "morals and manners and genteel learning must be offered them "; third, that coeducation was a safe experiment and particularly valuable from the economic standpoint; fourth, that the work at Mount Holyoke was succeeding and that a college for the higher education for women-Vassar-was about to be opened; fifth, that the pioneer life had made necessary comradeship in education.

This was the status of education for women at the time of the opening of the land-grant college. This organization marked a new epoch in the world's educational history. The land-grant colleges were at once a protest against the narrowness of the classics alone, a plea for breadth in education, a challenge to connect education with the daily life and occupations of the people, a demand for the study of science that it might be applied to the problems of the farm and the mine. Men of courage and of vision have persistently declared that a democracy demands that all the children of all the people must be educated.

The records show that a great number of the land-grant colleges were founded in the decade from 1865 to 1875, and that almost all of those in the West were open to women. Therefore, the process by which "that tender and interesting branch was to be transformed into women" was begun. Comparatively few of the people of that day had any conception of the far-reaching results of this open door in the education of women. These pioneer women gave themselves gladly to "keeping step" mentally with the men. That task being accomplished, they looked for other fields to conquer and slowly but surely the truth dawned upon them, that they might find some applications of science in their own domain, that chemistry and bacteriology could be applied in the preparation of food. The laws of heat

could be illustrated by the kitchen range as well as by the steam engine. Thus was a beginning made in the science side of home economics. The art developed later. By 1910 there were proofs on every hand of the greatness of the contributions of the land-grant colleges to the education of women. Briefly, some of them may be enumerated as follows: The privilege of an open mind toward education; a willingness to try experiments; financial support; equipment; the spirit of service; the recognition that the needs of the p:ople were to be considered in their selection of work and that the results of their studies were to serve the interests of the State; the scientific basis in the study of household problems.

The value of such an education was recognized not only by the women themselves but by leaders in the educational world. President Eliot said at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Collegiate Alumnæ Association:

It used to be said that women could not stand the physical strain of a college education, that mentally they could not keep pace with the men; that their morals and manners would suffer. Having proved that these charges were untrue it would seem that they might give their attention to developing lines of work of peculiar interest to women.

United States Commissioner Brown said:

It has taken a great struggle to establish fully the higher education of women as a simple human need. The integration of woman's education with the general scheme of education has been brought about. But the differentiation of woman's education is yet to be accomplished. Some practicable scheme of education for mother work will, we can not doubt, be devised in the course of time. There will be, some day, an education for homemaking, and for woman's leading part in the finer forms of social intercourse, which will do on the higher and academic plane what was done in a more petty way generations ago in popular finishing schools for girls, but this, too, is only a part. There is to be further a serious preparation for woman's rôle in the economic, the industrial, and even in the political world.

Home economics in 1910 had attained an honorable place as an important factor, not only in land-grant colleges, but in many types of educational agencies. Its advocates had formed the American Home Economics Association, and founded the Journal of Home Economics, whose pages were recording the steps in what may be called the internal development of the subject. It was no small undertaking to develop courses of instruction adapted to different types of schools, to decide upon the basic and related subjects, to give due proportion to each of the main divisions. Committees worked diligently to get the subject matter into pedagogical form that it might take its proper place in the curriculum. In this connection mention ought to be made of the invaluable services of the United States Department of Agriculture, of Mrs. Ellen H. Rich

ards, and the faculties of the land-grant colleges. They had in a sense been "over the way" in planning courses in agriculture, and so knew the difficulties and dangers of the journeys. The report of the Secretary of Agriculture for 1909 contains the statement that the Director of Experiment Stations has spent some time in developing a four-year college course in home economics. This same department gave invaluable aid in the preparation of a syllabus of home economics. The science side of home economics was the first to be emphasized, largely because of the universal interest in food and of the literature on nutrition and other phases of the food work which had been prepared by the Department of Agriculture; but the importance of the social and artistic sides of the subject were soon recognized and given due attention.

The year 1914 is a memorable one in home economics because in that year the Federal Government inaugurated extension service in home economics by means of the Smith-Lever law. That law provided the machinery for carrying the information from the college to the women in the farm home. It not only opened new opportunities for service, new methods of testing the value of home economics, but also marked an epoch in education because it is the first definite provision on the part of the Federal Government for a scientific study of the problems of the home. It was a recognition by the Government and land-grant college that the value of farm life could not be estimated by the numbers of its flocks and herds or by the value of its crops alone, but must also consider the kind of life maintained in the farm home. And so another great door of human betterment was opened, another chance was given for men and women to work side by side, in the world's problems. To establish machinery by which the latest scientific information concerning the problems of their daily life may be carried to the women throughout the length and breadth of the land is a magnificent achievement. The value of this machinery was demonstrated on a large scale in the World War. Under the emergency fund women trained in home economics were placed in cities and country to carry to the people the instructions of the Food Administration.

Other steps in the recognition of home economics during this period are: The addition of two women trained in home economics to the staff of the United States Bureau of Education; the reorganization of the United States Department of Agriculture, leading to the establishment of the Office of Home Economics (really an expansion of the earlier work in nutrition); and later, the creation of a division of home economics in the Association of Land-Grant Colleges.

By 1916 the foundations of home economics may be said to have been fairly well settled in the college curriculum; the appreciation