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outline lessons on various subjects, such as fire, water, various food materials and cooking processes, dish washing, house cleaning, and other problems in the household.

The instruction extends from the sixth grade through the fourth year of high school, and is a recognized part of the course of study. This includes cooking and sewing in the elementary schools and advanced work in the secondary schools. Baltimore County surrounds Baltimore City, and has three distinct types of schools-those with city conditions, the suburban, and the rural schools. The first and second groups are reached by special teachers who visit the schools, remaining varying lengths of time, according to the number of classes to be taught. The rural-school group has been and still is the most difficult one, for so much depends upon the school-teacher. We are trying to solve the problem in Baltimore County in two ways; first, schools situated within reasonable distance of a school having an equipped room send their pupils to that center by trolley, railroad, or team. Classes are planned so that several visiting schools may come at noon and remain through the afternoon, thus having cooking one and one-half hours and sewing one hour, under the instruction of the special teacher.

The situation in isolated rural schools makes this plan impossible, so we are using another method. A home economics club is formed in the school. A very simple, portable equipment is installed for the use of the club members, and the work is carried on under close supervision. In one case the teacher of the school gives the lessons to the girls; in another, women of the neighborhood. The latter development came about in this way:

At an afternoon meeting of the patrons' club, in which there had been thorough discussion of the problems of the home economics club, it was suggested by the chairman that different women assume certain lessons, each selecting her specialty. The suggestion met with a ready response, and the list of lessons and method of procedure were worked out.

It is understood that whether the class is taught by the teacher or by the patrons the outline for the work will be carefully followed. Definite instruction material is furnished by the supervisor of home economics to the principal of the school. This includes recipes, methods, explanation, and emphasis of important points of the lesson, together with a set of questions which review the lesson in detail. Each student has her special home economics blank book, in which all work must be written in ink. This book must always be ready for the inspection of the supervisor. The teacher is responsible for all of this part of the work. The Elements of the Theory and Practice of Cookery and Farmers' Bulletins of the United States Department of Agriculture are used as references. The recipe to be used is followed by the instructor, whether teacher or patron. Interesting results that have followed are the closer cooperation of patrons and school and the introduction of daily hot lunches prepared by the girls of the club (most of the material donated by the patrons).

The sewing in the rural schools is a regular part of the grade work under the supervisor of home economics. Group meetings are held regularly and classes frequently visited.

Toward the end of the year an exhibit from all the schools furnishes an opportunity for competition and has proved an efficient way to arouse interest and cooperation.

An experimental rural school-Winthrop College.-Experimental work in developing a curriculum in household arts for rural schools has been under way at the rural school of Winthrop College, South 60439°-15

Carolina, in the last few years in the experimental rural school located on the campus. The children have prepared one hot dish each day for their noon recess and have either contributed 2 cents a day for the expense or have brought materials from home, as suggested by the teacher, the majority bringing food. A systematic study of food principles and food composition was begun last year with two or three lessons a week, one hour in length. The school garden contributes to the school table. Cooperation with the home is sought, and the parents are asked to allow the children to repeat the cooking lessons at home. The cooking lessons furnish subject matter for number work, spelling, and written work. The boys participate in the lessons. Seasonal lessons, as for Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc., are introduced.

Model rural school-Hays Kansas Normal.-The model rural district school of the Western State Normal School of Kansas follows the regular State course of study, but emphasizes things usually neglected in rural schools-music, drawing and color work, woodwork with knife, sewing, elementary agriculture, and other occupations. The work in household arts is described by the teacher, Miss Julia M. Stone, as follows:

Our attempts are modest; we aim to include about such work as might be given in the ordinary first sewing course in any standard school. This is hand sewing entirely. It includes instruction in implements and materials used; the different basting and sewing stitches, and their uses; different kinds of seams, hems, etc., and their application; overcasting, overhanding, patching, darning, buttonholing; sewing on buttons and hooks and eyes; matching and joining of lace and embroidery; gathering, tucking, putting on bands, plackets, etc. This is done first in the form of small models and later applied in the making of garments. Our school has a doll for which the lower grades make articles of clothing, because these can be finished before the task becomes irksome, and yet they may include every exercise that would be found in a large garment. The older pupils also make simple garments or fancy articles for themselves. Some attempt is made also to teach good taste in color combinations and decoration. All grades from the third up take the work, but as it can be given only once or twice a week, progress is not very rapid. All enjoy it very much, however. Cookery is given from the fifth grade up to both boys and girls, once a week.

Field work in rural schools.-Certain normal schools and colleges. which fit for teaching, particularly rural teaching, have made special efforts to acquaint the intending teacher with rural conditions. The State Normal School at Harrisonburg, Va., has successfully used rural schools for observation and practice teaching under supervision by the normal school faculty, and the work in household arts has been especially successful (p. 122).

The department of domestic science of the University of West Virginia has been experimenting with practice work in rural centers by college students. Last year a sewing class was held in schools

and this year the department is planning a course of 30 lessons to show what can be done by a teacher in a rural school who has limited training in home economics.

The department of home economics at Cornell University is beginning to give assistance to rural schools in the vicinity of the university through its extension class. This class is composed of young women, mostly seniors, who are preparing to teach. The school constitutes a laboratory for the class. A lesson in cocoa making, egg cooking, making white sauce, bread making, or table setting and serving, is given at each visit to a rural school. Members of the class, cooperating with the rural school-teacher, drive to the school, carrying with them an oil or alcohol stove, necessary utensils, and supplies for a simple lesson. One student demonstrates the making and baking of bread, another develops the geography lesson from the growing and marketing of wheat, another develops the arithmetic lesson from the recipe for making the bread. The nutritive value of the food is explained in simple terms. This work has led to prize bread-making contests in rural schools.

State courses of study. The Missouri State Course for Rural Graded Schools, 1911, recommends that sewing, while not required, be made part of the elementary curriculum. The general direction given is: "Do not try too many articles; excellence of work and some technical skill are more to be desired." It is suggested that children bring materials from home and receive instruction in the various stitches and in applications, such as: Sewing bags, tea towels, and even children's clothing. Mending, darning, pressing, brushing, and storing clothing; use of gasoline, chalk, and acids in removing stains; and laundering are also suggested as topics. For cooking one period of 75 to 90 minutes a week may be secured by closing school at 3.15 or 3.30 on cooking days.

The South Dakota course of study for elementary schools recommends dividing the girls in rural schools into two groups, those under 12 and those over 12, for work in household arts; and that clubs of girls be organized to work at home Saturdays.

The Illinois course of study, 1912, recommends that household arts be taught under "General exercises" in fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth years. A course in sewing is outlined for the fifth and sixth years, and a course in cooking for the seventh and eighth years. It is recommended that two periods of 75 minutes each be given to this work each month, using time after recess in the afternoon of the first and third Fridays of each month.

Supplementary farm industries should form an element in courses of home economics for rural schools. Thus the Ohio "Course of Study for Agriculture in Elementary Schools" suggests such matters

as "garden, poultry, lawn, dairy, apiary, and birds," as well as, under domestic science

homemaking and housekeeping, cooking, bread making, and all baking, sewing, house decorating, butter making, the health of the home, and the farm premises, buying, selling, home economics, home sociology, nursing, accounts, care of house, and prevention of sickness, laundering, recipes.

The possibility of simple beginnings in household arts in rural schools is well put in the Teachers' Manual for the Elementary Schools of South Carolina (1911), as follows:

One of the most important services a teacher can render is to stimulate the natural impulses of the girls in her school toward the improvement of the home. Perhaps not many schools at present can introduce a course in cooking. It can be more easily done than the teacher will imagine. If the teacher has the workroom, a cook stove and a few necessary utensils can be gathered at the schoolhouse. This, however, is not necessary. Excellent work has been done by teachers who have simply organized "homemakers' clubs" among the larger girls and have encouraged them to meet at their own homes and follow out the suggestions of the teacher or the directions which have come from the supervisor of the State.

County courses of study.-Some county superintendents of schools are carrying on an active program for the introduction of household arts in rural and town schools. The county superintendent of Christian County, Ill., drew up in 1908. a 20-page outline of lessons in household arts for instruction in the seventh grade, which has since been enlarged and made the basis of valuable work. "The boys are expected to study the theory of foods and nutrition, while the girls will be expected to try the recipes at the school if possible; if not, then at home." Outlines have been printed by some progressive district schools; thus District 75, of Cook County, Ill., prints a 2-page circular outlining manual training for boys and domestic arts for girls.

Household arts in teachers' institutes.-It is noteworthy that in agricultural extension a definite effort is made to get farmers' institute speakers on better farming methods before teachers' institutes, and thus aid in introducing some informal teaching of agriculture into rural and village schools. Education for the home must follow the same clue by introducing household-arts teaching into the teachers' institutes, as has been done in the Tennessee institutes.

Section 2. THE WARM LUNCH AND FOOD TEACHING IN THE RURAL SCHOOL.

A practical way to introduce some simple cooking instruction into rural schools is for the teacher to arrange for a hot dish cooked by some one student or a committee supplemental to the cold lunches brought from home. This method, early urged by Ellen H. Richards

in a pamphlet on "Rural School Lunches," has been widely adopted.1 The Cheney (Wash.) Normal School has taken a strategic step by providing special instruction for all prospective students desiring it in the preparation of the supplementary warm dish at school for children who bring a lunch basket.

For the demonstration of this problem a department has been installed in which students will be given an opportunity to observe and also to assist in the daily preparation and serving of one warm food to 50 children. The success of the work has aroused so much interest and enthusiasm that the department has been enlarged, and is now prepared to send out teachers well equipped for the economical and efficient introduction of the hot noon lunch.

The State department of public instruction of Nebraska, in a circular of August, 1913, on agricultural training, urges that for the rural schools a weekly 75-minute lesson in sewing be provided, and that the daily hot lunch be made a means of teaching some domestic science.

The cooking that can be done will be in the nature of some warm dish prepared for the noon meal. This dish may be potatoes, soup, or some kind of meat. A certain pupił may be given the work for the day, and this can be so alternated that all of the larger girls will have an opportunity at this work.

Equipment for rural school lunches.-The University of Idaho, in a recent bulletin on school lunches, recommends a list of equipment costing $17.81, which includes a kerosene stove and oven costing $11 and a kitchen table costing $1.95. This table is ingeniously made into a kitchen cabinet by inclosing the space below the table and between the legs with a cracker box painted white. The other items recommended are: Kettle, 70 cents; saucepan, 20 cents; two muffin pans, 70 cents; bowl strainer, 25 cents; egg beater, 35 cents; pot scraper, 10 cents; iron basting spoon, 10 cents; tin measuring cup, 10 cents; two dredge boxes, 10 cents; No. 7 frying pan, 35 cents; rinsing pan, 25 cents; 10 by 15 drip pan, 25 cents; butcher knife, 60 cents; kitchen knife, 35 cents; iron-handle knife and fork, 15 cents; 3 teaspoons, 6 cents; quart measure, 15 cents; potato masher, 10 cents. In addition, each child is to have individual equipment of a soup bowl, cup, plate, spoon, knife, fork, and paper napkins. Similar publications on equipment for rural school lunches have been issued by the State College of Colorado, the State College of Iowa, and other institutions.

The problem of equipment for cooking in a 1-room school has been solved at Fruitville, Mo., by pitching a 12 by 14 tent across the platform in front of the schoolhouse and arranging it as a real kitchen, with stove, table, cupboard, and the equipment of the usual farm kitchen. Fire is laid before school and started at recess. At

1 Whitcomb and Barrows, Boston, 15 cents. See, also, The rural school warm lunch." Mary L. Bull. Journal of Home Economics, 4 (1912), p. 477.

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