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V

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, September 30, 1914.

SIR: In America at least the home is the most important of all institutions. From it are the issues of life. In the little world of the home children are born and reared. In it they grow to manhood and womanhood. From it they go forth into the larger world of society and state, to establish in turn their own little world of the home in which they grow old and die. Their memories linger around the homes of their childhood; the memories of them held by later generations are associated with the homes of their manhood and womanhood. In the home children receive the most important part of their education. In the home must be established their physical, mental, and moral health. The experiences of home constitute the raw material of the education of the schools. The character and the teaching, conscious or unconscious, of the home determine in a large measure their attitude toward all other institutions and toward all the relations of life. From the home parents and older children go forth to their daily toil, and to the home they bring the products or the earnings of their labor, to be expended, wisely and prudently or unwisely and imprudently, for food, clothing, shelter, and the other necessities and luxuries of life. For most people the home is the beginning and end of life. All their activities proceed from it and return to it. Therefore, of all the arts those pertaining to home making are the most important and of all the sciences those which find their application in the home, making us intelligent about the home and its needs, are the most significant. If the schools are to assist in making us intelligent about the life we live and the work we do, they must provide liberally for instruction in these arts and sciences. Within the last two or three decades, educators and people generally have become conscious of this fact as never before, and gradually the schools are being readjusted to meet the new demands. Probably they have never undertaken a more important or difficult task, and there is constant need for information in regard to methods adopted and results obtained. I, therefore, more than two years ago asked Benjamin R. Andrews, assistant professor of household economics in the Teachers College of Columbia University, to prepare for this bureau a statement, as full and accurate as possible, of the present status of education for the home in American schools and colleges. This Mr. Andrews

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