women are held mornings; separate meetings for each in the afternoons. There are speakers on agriculture from the State university and on home subjects from the State College for Women; exhibits, demonstrations, and stereoptican lectures are provided. The women's topics at a recent two-day institute at Greensboro were as follows:

Is a woman's time worth anything? The girl on the farm; Demonstration-Meat in the diet, and its preparation; Preparation of foods for infants and children: The home as a nation builder; Labor-saving conveniences; Demonstrations-Yeast bread, Quick bread; Home nursing; Simple desserts. The institute work is followed up by forming local home improvement clubs, which carry out study programs and report monthly to the college.

Facts regarding farmers' institutes are to be found in the annual: report of the American Association of Farmers' Institute Workers, and the annual report on farmers' institutes and agricultural extension work, and other special publications issued by the Office of Experiment Stations, United States Department of Agriculture, which includes on its staff a "farmers' institute specialist" who acts as a clearing house for the institute movement. The association referred to has a standing committee on women's institutes. A canvass of women's institute workers made by this committee in 1911 showed (1) a sentiment favoring joint institutes, with separate sessions for women, but some joint home-making sessions for men and women rather than separate institutes for women; (2) an opinion that farm women are ready for more advanced instruction in dietetics; (3) that more capable instruction in institutes waits on the training of special workers (Cornell University has since established a course for training extension workers in home economics); and (4) varying opinions as to whether farm homes could be visited by teaching experts as farms are visited by agricultural experts.

Those interested in women's institute work in the United States will find the experience of the Province of Ontario illuminating. The women's institutes of Ontario embrace 750 organizations, numbering 25,000 members, with the following purpose:

The dissemination of knowledge relating to domestic science, including household architecture, with special attention to home sanitation; a better understanding of the economic and hygienic value of foods, clothing, and fuel, and a more scientific care and training of children with a view to raising the general standard of the health and morals of our people; or the carrying on of any work which has for its object the uplift of the home or the betterment of conditions surrounding community life.

The Ontario institutes for women began about 15 years ago and developed rapidly. At first domestic science absorbed the attention of the members. Recently the programs have widened. The

form of organization requires local initiative. Each organization is to hold at least four meetings a year, and many hold monthly meetings. Once or twice during the year a lecturer from the provincial department of agriculture visits each local organization. In addition the department grants $3 each year to each branch institute and a direct grant to the district organization of $10 and $3 in addition for each branch, a total in 1912 of $4,971. Recently systematic instruction by well-qualified teachers in cooking, sewing, and home nursing has been introduced wherever the individual institute forms a class of 25 persons, each person paying $1 for the course. An annual convention of the institutes brings together 500 or more delegates from all sections of the Province. The institute' idea has spread in British Columbia and Alberta, and a few organizations have been formed in other Provinces. An inter-provincial organization has been formed to advance the institutes.1

Section 2. THE GRANGE AND HOME ECONOMICS.

The Patrons of Husbandry, populary known as "the Grange," a farmers' organization extending into some 30 States, with a membership of over a million, has from its beginning in 1867 given women an equal place with men in its membership, and has recently undertaken work in home economics of a distinctive character.

Certain statements in the declaration of purpose of the Grange adopted in 1874 show its early and fundamental interest in what we called to-day the home-economics idea:

To develop a better and higher manhood and womanhood; to enhance the comforts and attractions of home, and strengthen our attachments to our pursuits. * * * We especially advocate for our agricultural and industrial colleges that practical agriculture, domestic science, and all the arts which adorn the home be taught in their courses of study *** Last but not least, we proclaim it among our purposes to inculcate a proper appreciation of the abilities and sphere of woman, as is indicated by admitting her to membership and position in our order.

The unit of organization is the local grange, meeting weekly or once or twice a month, with programs looking to the advancement of country life; the local granges unite for quarterly meetings in county or Pomona granges; they also send the masters and their wives (or if the grange master is a woman, her husband is associated with her) as delegates to the State grange; and the masters of the State granges and their wives form the National Grange. The grange is unique in the equality given women in its membership, staff of officers, and business.

The "master" of the local grange is the presiding officer and is charged with business and financial duties; the "lecturer," who is

1 See Annual Reports of the Women's Institutes of Ontario, Department of Agriculture, Toronto; also Journal of Home Economics, 5 (1913), p. 197.

often a woman, is responsible for the social and educational programs of the organization.

Some direct efforts for home betterment have from the first been made in connection with the regular programs of grange meetings which have included topics related to the home. Two women may be mentioned especially in this connection, first, Mrs. Mary A. Mayo,1 who, as a prominent worker in the Michigan grange from the seventies until her death in 1903, secured a hearing for the problems of the home, of child care, of household management and related matters, and especially it would seem of the personal and social problems of the home. In 1895 Mrs. Mayo became a leader in the women's division of the farmers' institutes of Michigan and carried further her remarkable work for Michigan farm women.

The second woman who is especially responsible for home economics progress in and through the grange is Mrs. Elizabeth H. Patterson, of College Park, Md., elected Ceres in the National Grange in 1907 and now chairman of its national home-economics committee. Mrs. Patterson turned the Grange's interest in home problems to a study of the practical and technical aspects of housekeeping. As Ceres, she conducted a home-economics department in the National Grange Monthly with articles and lessons, which were afterwards reprinted and circulated among the local granges, on such subjects as the house-its structure, decoration, care and sanitation; principles of cooking and dietetics.

In 1908 Mrs. Patterson reported to the National Grange that-

As far as I have observed, questions related to the home do not enter into grange programs in proportion to their importance. In many instances the women's part is chiefly devoted to art, music, literature, or often something in the comic or frivolous vein. This is not as it should be. Why are we home makers satisfied with the husks?

In 1909 she reported increased interest and quoted one State leeturer's statement that-

the home in general has been talked about in the grange perhaps quite as much as the farm in general-possibly more-but that the specific duties of the house and its work have by no means been taken up in the same technical way that the technical work of the farm has.

It was this technical study of home problems which Mrs. Pattersen emphasized. A standing committee on home economics was appointed in the National Grange, and similar action recommended to local granges.

In 1911 reading courses and study circles in home economics were reported by some granges, with the comment by Ceres, "This is a

1 One Woman's Work for Farm Women. Jennie Buel. Whitcomb & Barrows, Boston. See also above, p. 154.

good plan, provided it does not take the place of having discussions of home subjects at regular grange meetings." State granges were urged to furnish speakers on home subjects to local granges, to cooperate with the home-economics work of State colleges, and the importance of legislation introducing home economics into rural schools was urged. The National Grange committee on home economics reported in 1912 that 18 of 29 State granges replied as to home-economics work; 3 reported as much attention to home economics as to other subjects; 12 reported active support of the Federal bill for aid to vocational education, including home economics; 8 States had State home-economics committees, and 2 others were about to be appointed; 10 States report cooperation between the State college and the State grange in home-economics work; the committee also reported on the status of home-economics work in State colleges, in the agricultural fairs, and other divisions of the field; and, finally, it presented a program of progressive work for State granges and the National Grange, including a recommendation that the latter prepare a leaflet of reference books on home economics and draw up a year's outline of study of home economics to be followed by local granges. In 1913 the national committee continued this program, and urged use of score cards for exhibits of home products at fairs.

It is evident that the effort to get attention for technical problems of the home within the grange has succeeded, illustrating the possibility of securing in a nontechnical organization an intelligent consideration of underlying principles and of technical problems on which improvement in home matters will turn.1

Section 3. RURAL HOUSEHOLD DEMONSTRATORS.

The appointment of county agents and demonstrators to aid in advancing agriculture, which is well under way as an item in the country betterment movement, is taking such a form that it will include rural home betterment in its program. Several States, as New York, Vermont, Michigan, Massachusetts, Indiana, have already taken action in authorizing county or district agricultural advisers; and county industrial supervisors are also at work in certain Southern States, as Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Thus the Virginia State superintendent of public instruction reports supervisors of industrial work for white schools in 3 counties and for negro schools in 28 counties, with 23 of the latter working throughout the year.

They visit the homes of the negroes and instruct them in gardening, sewing. cooking, and other industrial arts. Our next step will be to organize a like system of supervision among the whites.

1 The Grange and Home Economics.

nomics, 5 (1913), p. 206.

Elizabeth II. Patterson. Journal of Home Eco

In North Dakota Miss Mildred Veitch was appointed field woman of the Better Farming Section of the Agricultural Experiment Station in 1913, with the plan of giving attention to home betterment by aiding individual homes in the organization of the kitchen and the installation of modern equipment. Her field is the State, and her work has begun with great promise.

The Indiana law of 1913, in providing for county agents, states that they shall

under the supervision of Purdue University, cooperate with farmers' institutes, farmers' clubs, and other organizations, conduct practical farm demonstrations, boys' and girls' clubs, and contest work and other movements for the advancement of agriculture and country life, and give advice to farmers on practical farm problems and aid the county superintendent of schools and the teachers in giving practical education in agriculture and domestic science.

Thus, the Indiana plan for aiding the home through the county agent is restricted to school and club work in domestic science, but it is a hopeful beginning.

The Massachusetts Agricultural College has been consulted as to a county home economics worker, in cooperation with the Hampden County Improvement League, which supports the county agricultural demonstration work in the County of Hampden, Mass. Funds for the agricultural work were provided by the subscriptions of business men, and the addition of home economics work seems probable. The plan will be to appoint a worker who will have as headquarters "a small house centrally located simply and artistically furnished to show what can be done with limited means, and immaculately kept." She will depend more, however, upon going about among the people, reaching them through the schools, the granges, farmers' institutes, the tomato and other clubs, and especially

* **

going into the individual homes of the county and becoming thoroughly acquainted with the women and girls of those homes who, it is expected, will welcome her in the same manner that the men welcome the county agents. ** The woman worker needs to be possessed of much tact, having the most kindly feeling toward the inefficient home maker; one who can lead without offending; and one whose ideals are very high, so that no matter what conditions may be found in the neighborhood, she will not become discouraged.

Prof. Laura Comstock, of the Massachusetts College, has outlined the possible services of such a county home economic worker to include: The presentation to women and girls of the subject matter of home economics, including food, the house, home management, modern appliances, house sanitation, and first aid; educational work with boys and girls' clubs, and efforts to secure the introduction of regular teaching into rural schools: meetings with women's