ments. These student clippings are thoroughly discussed in class, or in written exercises by the students themselves, and the discussion furnishes splendid opportunity for emphasizing essentials. In the second semester this phase of the work is continued in the clipping and discussion of good and bad examples of writing from women's journals. The clippings are all mounted on loose leaves and filed in the student notebooks for future reference and guidance. In practice writing the student is kept busy throughout the course, because that is the great essential. When the assignments are short and require the writing of brief news stories, two or three such stories are required each week. Later, when the assignments are necessarily longer, only one each week is required, and finally, toward the end of the second semester, three weeks or more are allowed for the preparation of an article of considerable length. At first the assignments deal wholly with local news events that can be gathered conveniently, and they cover every possible type of news story. Later the assignments comprise the writings of home-economics stories. Always it is insisted that these stories must deal with fact, experience, or information that may be secured by the student directly at first hand. The student is not allowed to write about things that are remote, nor to indulge in the presentation of information that is wholly theoretical; the story must deal with things that "happen" in the field of home economics, the news of home economics. Criticism is given upon every assignment and as fully as possible. Sometimes a part of each session is given to criticism; sometimes all of occasional sessions. As often as time will permit, consultation and criticism in the instructor's office are resorted to. This is especially true in the second semester's work. RURAL-EXTENSION TEACHING NEW YORK STATE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE, CORNELL UNIVERSITY. A course in methods of rural-extension work in home economics is given by Prof. Martha Van Rensselaer in the department of home economics at Cornell University. Its purpose is to acquaint students with the problems of the farm community and to give some preparation for extension work in this field. Training in home economics in many institutions must necessarily be from the city point of view, since the laboratories offered for practical work are in cities and larger towns. Colleges of agriculture have larger opportunity for rural laboratories. The following principles are urged at the beginning of the course: (a) Improvement of the farm home is a part of rural progress and demands scientific instruction. (b) More varied instruction is needed for farm women than for other housekeepers, since the farm work comprises all forms of household work. (c) Everyone is dependent upon the careful application of the principles of production and distribution of which the farmer's wife has a large control. The health and welfare of any community depends upon the instruction of farm women. Therefore, the State is justified in making appropriations for extension instruction for the farm home. (d) Farm-home extension is not a field for philanthropy. The best teaching ability and educational methods should be directed to it. The class is instructed in methods of presentation before audiences, subject matter, preparation of outlines, public speaking, and use of good English. The laboratory is made up of rural schools within a few miles of the university and of study clubs desiring lectures and demonstrations. Contests are held in the rural schools to encourage a study of domestic science and to give a field for extension practice. For example, a lesson is given in a rural school in bread making by a student in the extension class. Pupils are requested to practice at home and bring their bread to the schoolhouse, to be judged when some members of the class go to the school to judge the bread. Prizes are offered for the best loaves of bread and for the best description of wheat growing and bread making. Correlated subjects are treated wherever possible. In the bread contests a student presents the bread-making lesson; another student gives a talk upon wheat growing. Frequently there are members of the class who have taken courses in the agricultural college and are capable of giving a lesson in the growing of various products. Thus, in an afternoon's presentation, drawing, spelling, English, geography, arithmetic, history, and sometimes physiology are all taught by means of the lessons in domestic science and agriculture. An advanced course of special problems is given to students who have taken the course in rural extension. They are allowed to go to schools and to meetings of organizations to present demonstrations and lectures which have been approved by an instructor. III. DATA ON COLLEGE INSTRUCTION. Section 1. COLLEGES GIVING INSTRUCTION IN HOME ECONOMICS. Some 252 colleges are, in 1914-15, giving instruction in home economics. Of these colleges, 99 presented detailed statements in 1912-13 of their instruction in this field, and these detailed returns are presented in Table 1; analyzed statistically these detailed returns form the basis of the discussion of college instruction which follows. It is to be borne in mind that this statistical study of the curricula and activities of the colleges and universities is necessarily based on the limited number of schedules returned by colleges and reported in Table 1. In order to exhibit more completely the work in colleges and universities, the list of all institutions reporting such instruction is entered at the close of the detailed table (p. 68), and is followed by a list of 43 colleges which, while not offering distinctively home economics courses, do offer applied science courses having reference to the home. 62 |