In initiating such activities, the representative of Winthrop College goes to a mill community and interests the mill owners, ministers, teachers, and other leaders, that the movement may have local leadership. She arranges a mass meeting and places before it the plan of a community house and of home betterment and club work, outlining what is done in other towns. A second meeting of the

women is called to form a woman's club—

for the discussion of ways of doing the work of the home, care of the children, etc., so that each may profit by the ideas of all, and have a good time as well, showing that such an organization can become a power for good.

At the first meeting of the women a cooking demonstration, or sewing lesson, with a program and refreshments, increases the interest; an organization is made, officers elected, and the matter of program decided—a cooking class, sewing circle, civic improvement, or relief work for the sick. The latter has proved especially effective as a first-step, with the making of bed linen, nightdresses, etc., to be lent by the club on application. The club meetings for sewing provide opportunity for informal discussion and definite instruction on fly eradication, window-screens, colds, infant feeding, selection of foods, and clothing

possibilities of my garden, your method of securing obedience from the child and mine-a wide range of topics, but undertaken with the hope of broadening the outlook; while our specific endeavor is progressing we learn to know each other, grow to feel ourselves a unit ready to undertake some more difficult work.

With a start made, a volunteer leader for a class of girls at work, evening instruction in cooking or sewing may be the next step; by this time the mill authorities are usually interested, and as the program develops a mill cottage is gladly made available as a community center; the preparations for this, cleaning, furnishing, deco-rating, call out the greatest interest and cooperation. A community entertainment may provide funds for furnishings, books, magazines, cooking utensils, and games for the community house. The "mill " contributes, and soon the new center of inspiration and of home and community betterment is under way as a meeting place for clubs, classes, and social gatherings. Such an educational program, in charge of trained domestic-science workers, means sanitary living, better food, intelligent child care, a better home life, and not less community progress in efficiency, intelligence, and every good thing, wrought out by the cooperative effort of the people themselves. Success very evidently turns on the devotion and wisdom of the trained leader. The wemen may take the responsibility for the "once-a-week open-house" evenings. "It is splendid to watch the growth in self-reliance and community spirit."

Just now the extension worker is promoting an interest in betterbaby contests, after the plan of the Better Baby Health Association. A score card and bulletin is sent by the college to the mother of every baby examined. The mothers of babies which are scored low are asked to consult a physician, to follow the directions given in the bulletin, and to return with their babies in three months for a reexamination.

Section 11. VACATION TRAINING-SUMMER CAMPS AND CAMP SCHOOLS.

The summer camp is becoming not only a means of recreation, but also provides educational opportunities for its members. Handicraft activities of various kinds have commonly been introduced, and in many girls' camps the instruction in household arts is a feature. Ellen Richards once suggested that, as industrial processes are more and more removed from the home, we will come to value our seasons of recreation in the country for the first-hand experiences which they offer children in the arts of living. It is this educational asset which the camps are now developing. Such camps are commonly organized by settlement houses, private schools, the Young Women's Christian Association, churches, and other social and philanthropic organizations. The public-school authorities in certain parts of the country have begun to experiment with the camp, and many proprietary camps have been established.

One of the most interesting school camps is the "Farm Camp and Camp of the Golden Maids," organized by the county superintendent of Page County, Iowa, established in 1909, and opened for girls in 1911. In 1913, 220 students attended, including 75 or 80 girls. There is a 10-day program of lessons in the forenoon, and the afternoon is given over to sports, social enterprises, and the lectures at the Chautauqua where the camp meets. The girls' work includes lessons in cooking and sewing from instructors of the State college; also personal hygiene, canning clubs' demonstrations, and social activities. Contest work is introduced with prizes for neatness, sewing, bread making, and athletics. The boys as well as the girls learn the mysteries of dish washing and sanitation at the camp. The summer school of Milwaukee County School of Agriculture and Domestic Economy (p. 55) also has something of this character of a vacation school for boys and girls.

The Lanier Camp for Family Life, at Eliot, Me., may be instanced as one camp which has made a serious attempt to add to the usual camp program something of instruction regarding the home arts. The activities include not only camp life, with its accompanying fun and sports, but "the serious productive life of an old-fashioned home

and farm environment." The aim of the girls' camp is the development of the girl.

The camp is organized as a working home and has the atmosphere of oldtime family life. It gives the right attitude toward the home and some experience in contributing to its permanence. Conditions are crude and simple, and life is planned so that all may cooperate in service. The domestic work is directed and shared by experts, is standardized, and shows the girls, by the way it is done, that the same educated intelligence is required as to organize and manage a business, along with a deal more subtle tact, in that its character must always be, in the largest sense, personal and charitable. * * In a practice kitchen, independently equipped, is a trained teacher of cooking, with a group of girls helping. This teacher cooperates with the general housekeeper in preparing the meals, and all the work of the practice kitchen is made to supplement and relieve the general cook. In this way the girls work with one who "knows how" in serving an actual need. In the practice kitchen a large portion of the camp bread supply is made. *** There is a regular hour weekly for mending under direction.

Section 12. TRAINING FOR THE HOME-CAMP FIRE GIRLS AND BOY

SCOUTS.

These two voluntary organizations of girls and of boys, respectively, have certain by-products of training which are related to the home. The three stages in the Camp Fire Girls are the wood gatherers, fire makers, and torch bearers, and to pass from the first to second stage the girls must do these among other things: Help buy, prepare, and serve at least two meals for meetings of the camp fire, or two home meals; mend stockings or knitted undergarments, or hem a dish towel; keep a written classified account of all money received and spent for a month; sleep with open windows or outdoors for at least a month; know what to do in certain emergencies; know the chief causes of infant mortality and certain other required things; and, in addition, each girl must present 20 elective honors in health craft, home craft, nature lore, camp craft, hand craft, business, and patriotism. To become a torch bearer the girl must present 15 additional honors.

The activities in these seven groups represent all the phases of woman's work. They are to make for status in that work. After a certain kind of work has been dignified, it is done in a very different way from what it was before.

An organization of a local group of Camp Fire Girls affords an opportunity for teachers, church workers, and others to undertake a kind of work with adolescent girls which, among other things. will give rich returns as regards the home. (Address: Camp Fire Girls, New York City.)

The Boy Scouts have a somewhat similar discipline for boys.1

1Address, 200 Fifth Avenue, New York City.

Section 13. CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOLS OF HOME ECONOMICS.

The American School of Home Economics was chartered by the State of Illinois about 10 years ago to give instruction by correspondence. The school, up to 1914, has registered 15,000 persons, who have taken either a reading course, a partial course, or the entire correspondence course. The school has issued 12 textbooks on various divisions of home economics, which have been widely used in libraries and schools, as well as by its own students. These books, which are published in several editions, may be secured either independently or in a reading course arranged by the school, or in its regular correspondence course with lessons by mail. The school maintains for its members a circulating library, a purchasing department, and house-building bureau; it lends lecture manuscripts. and lantern slides; and offers services to women's clubs.

Other correspondence instruction in home economics has been projected by the proprietary institutions, which have developed the method of teaching technical subjects by mail.

Elsewhere a statement has been made of correspondence instruction undertaken by the colleges, and the home woman interested in studying household problems by correspondence will do well to make inquiry at the department of home economics of the State college or university of her State.

Section 14. LIBRARIES AND EDUCATION FOR THE HOME.

It is obvious that the library can aid greatly in the popular movement for home education. Public libraries accordingly have as a matter of course included books on housekeeping and housekeeping magazines in their collections. The library may render special service in this field by bringing together its housekeeping books in an open reference section where they may be readily consulted by the housekeeper.

Women's clubs have, in many communities, cooperated with the library in developing its collection of household books. The Ontario Library Association, to cite a Canadian example, has been at special pains to print in its annual list suggestions as to recommended books on the household. It has been suggested that the larger libraries might experiment with a consulting adviser or reference librarian, who would specialize in household subjects, and that the work for housekeepers in libraries might attain the importance which work for children has assumed in American libraries.

Several libraries have published lists of books on the home; the New York State Library at Albany, N. Y., a bibliography of domestic economy, in 1901; the Chicago Public Library, a pamphlet of recommended titles on domestic economy, in 1906; the Boston

Library, a complete catalogue of its books on domestic science, in 1911. The Chicago list sets a good example of a library publication in this field.

There are possibilities also in circulating libraries on home economics. Thus the Ohio State Library, at the request of the women's organizations, has recently added traveling libraries of home economics with 30 different books in a set, and nearly 500 volumes have been put in circulation. Traveling libraries have also been used in other States in Kentucky, New York, and elsewhere.

Section 15. JOURNALISM AND THE HOME.

The influence of the periodical press has been important in the movement for home betterment. There are some 120 American magazines entirely devoted to this field, such as the well-known Ladies Home Journal, of Philadelphia; Good Housekeeping, New York; Woman's Home Companion, New York; and others. Most newspapers have a column, or sometimes a page, devoted to the interests of the home. Material for these newspaper departments is sometimes prepared by a special editor, and newspapers which are developing this department have it in their power to render a great service for better homemaking in their own communities. Daily papers have also secured much of their household material from syndicate services which send out either prepared copy or plate material which in turn is prepared by special writers under contract. Some of these departments are repeated in a hundred different newspapers in various parts of the country and reach hundreds of thousands of readers. The greater part of this writing so far has been done by persons who are writers rather than household experts. There is a growing interest, however, among the household technical colleges in household journalism as a profession, and the Iowa State College journalism courses outlined elsewhere are a hopeful beginning.1 There are many special periodicals which include a home department, such as the religious press, the agricultural papers, and the organs of fraternal organizations. Mrs. Hutt's remarkable service in this direction in the Progressive Farmer, of Raleigh, N. C., should be mentioned, and the work of the Breeders Gazette in introducing concrete house construction to its readers is a good illustration of the possibilities of well-directed home departments in agricultural papers. The Country Gentleman, of Philadelphia, conducts a department in which authoritative articles on domestic science appear, and the work of the many other agricultural papers in this field deserves warm commendation. It seems important to

1 See Part III of this Report, Bulletin, 1914, No. 38, p. 58.