Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 79.djvu/294

290 much more preparation than is ordinarily included under the subject of domestic science in order that she may be competent to develop the personalities of her family in every way. A suitable course for her in order to be of wide value should be a bringing together of all the work of her college days in its bearing upon individual adjustment to society through the medium of the home. The studies of literature, art, music, psychology, pedagogy, child study, emergency nursing, chemistry, physiology, biology, bacteriology, botany, sociology, in their hearing upon home life, will all be necessary for this ideally equipped homemaker. She needs, in other words, to be taught how to control her environment by making use of the knowledge which is available for race progress.

It is not going too far for the state through its educational institutions to require that each woman graduate who goes out from their walls shall be thus equipped for the work which is of greatest value to the state through the home. For instance, the state of Iowa now requires a course in pedagogy extending through much of two years for those who wish to have a state certificate to teach. Iowa might well go much farther and require that each woman who graduates from her university shall be prepared by suitable studies for the position of homemaker which sooner or later she may assume. Iowa is a progressive state in many respects. She is the first to put her educational institutions under a coordinating board. This board has within its power to take a distinct step in advance by enabling the university to offer studies which are especially suited for developing educated women as homemakers and as guardians of efficient social personality.

Most state agricultural colleges and state normal colleges have schools of domestic science to train teachers. The state universities as the crown of the educational system need training schools for wives and mothers, with all the advantages which higher education can give. This training must be of the very highest grade and no expense should be spared to make and keep it thus, so that every woman who goes forth from their halls shall be a center of light in the broadest way on the subjects of the hygiene of environment, of nutrition and of activity. If these conditions can be made to prevail in all our educational institutions, it is safe to say that the coming century will mark great vital, mental, moral and social advancement of the human race. Statistics tell us that at the present time 74,908 women are enrolled in the higher institutions of learning in this country. If each of these 75,000 college women and all who succeed them could go forth from their college life thoroughly prepared for their duties as women a great increase in individual and national efficiency might be expected.

The fact that many women say they "hate house work" does not lessen their responsibility for doing it well since they undertake to do it.