The three institutions offering special curricula in dietetics require some practical experience. There is obvious misunderstanding of the meaning of "practical experience." Many included what must be practice teaching and hospital dietetics practice under this head. It does not seem to be considered necessary that this practice be done under supervision. Particularly is this true in the fields of applied art, foods and nutrition, teacher training, and general home economics. Under teacher training, but nine institutions report the practice work done under supervision; eight that it is not supervised; three do not report. Two institutions report practice work in foods and nutrition done under supervision; three report no supervision. The practice in institutional management and clothing and textiles, though it is not widely required, is generally done under supervision. The student who is specializing with a view to preparing herself to go at once into highly specialized society, immediately upon leaving college, needs not only tools useful in her future practice, but practice and guidance in using these tools in particular situations. Methods can be better practiced in the actual situation where the student will employ them, than in the artificial setting of a classroom or a school laboratory. The establishment of home management houses has been a step in this direction for home management and general home economics. At best, it is somewhat artificial. It is highly desirable that home economics departments establish relationships with homemakers, commercial concerns, and other persons and agencies in order to work out a cooperative program which will include a broader opportunity for student practice under the guidance or supervision of persons capable of giving wise direction. This recommendation is not to be regarded from the standpoint of apprenticeship, but rather from the one of a mutual interchange of tools and methods. By practice in the real situation, the student gains much more than mechanical skills. By cooperation and association with outstandingly successful persons the student may not only learn techniques of management, but, more than that, he has an opportunity to observe a philosophy. Chapter IX. Students Home economics organizations in the institutions, home economics staffs, buildings, and offerings have no virtue of their own. Their purpose and value consist solely in their use in the education of students. It is possible, or has been attempted in preceding pages of this report, to discuss the suitability and standards of these instruments of instruction in a fashion more or less detached from the students themselves, but the ultimate measure of their usefulness is the human product. To attempt to determine the effect upon a national scale of home economics in terms of student measurement is impossible but some indication of the values of home economics instruction is afforded by the degree to which it attracts students (enrollments) by the character of the student body, by the number of degrees earned, and by the life occupations that graduates find. This section upon home economics students is devoted to these matters and to corollary considerations that arise from them. Enrollments It is a common assumption that the enrollment of women in landgrant institutions is largely enrollment of women majoring in home economics. That this is not the case in the 26 institutions for which comparable figures were available over a period of years, is shown by the graph on the opposite page. It will be noted that in this group of 26 institutions the percentage of home economics majors to the total enrollment of women has declined from 22 per cent in 1920-21 to 17 per cent in 1927-28. It will also be noted that while the percentage rate of increase of the total number of undergraduate women has tended to decline during the years 1920-21 to 1927-28, the rate of growth in the number of home economics majors has declined even more rapidly. It is perhaps significant that certain institutions show a very much higher percentage of home economics majors to the total enrollment of women in these institutions than is the case for the 26 institutions included in the graph. In Connecticut Agricultural College 89 per cent of the women enrolled are majoring in home economics; in Georgia State College, 85 per cent; in Iowa State College, 82 per cent; in Rhode Island State College, 75 per cent; Colorado Agricultural College, 70 per cent; Purdue University, 67 per cent; Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College, 49 per cent; South Dakota State College and the Agricultural College of Utah, each 40 per cent; and in Oregon Agricultural College 39 per cent. All of the institutions showing very high percentages of women students enrolled in home economics majors are separate land-grant colleges, that is predominately technical institutions. ENROLLMENT OF WOMEN IN HOME ECONOMICS MAJORS IN 26 INSTITUTIONS COMPARED WITH THE TOTAL This fact may be interpreted in two ways: Either the programs of these institutions are so limited to technical purposes that home economics is practically the only curriculum offered that appeals to women, or the home economics offerings are so constructed that they afford opportunities that in State universities would be met by distinct non-home economics curricula. Other evidence furnished by survey data makes it apparent that the institutions showing larger percentages of women majoring in home economics may be divided into two groups upon the basis of the application of these two tendencies. The relationship of the number of home economics majors to the total enrollment of women in the land-grant colleges is intimately connected with curricular development and definition of home economics objectives. The distribution of enrollments in various home economics curricula in 1927-28 presented by Table 27 for 43 institutions is of special interest in this connection. TABLE 27.-Enrollments in home economics by curricula in 43 land-grant institutions, 1927-28 The data concerning enrollments raise three questions: Shall home economics be developed as a special, highly technical type of education appealing to a relatively limited group of women? Shall it be developed as a medium that will provide a general college education for women more effectively than other curricula? Or shall differentiated home economics curricula be developed which will distinguish clearly between objectives appropriate to technical purposes and those designed for general education? Upon the answer of home economics and the institutions to these questions will depend in large part the distribution of the enrollment of women between home economics and other elements of the educational program. The size of the student body in home economics in various landgrant colleges in 1927-28 is significant. In 41 land-grant institutions reporting for the year 1927-28, enrollments in each of 15 institutions were fewer than 100; in 17 others they varied from 100 to 300; in 8 others from 300 to 600, and in 1 institution, the enrollment was more than 1,000. The largest enrollment is in Iowa State College, where 1,026 women have chosen home economics as their major field of study. Kansas State Agricultural College reports the next largest enrollment, 516. The University of Illinois reports 404; Purdue University, 432; Michigan State College, 401; the University of Minnesota, 434; Oregon Agricultural College, 476; the University of Wisconsin, 308. Another measure of the drawing power of home economics afforded by enrollment figures is the number of students enrolled in home economics as a minor study. Available data in regard to this type of service are very incomplete, but 7 institutions that have a system of majors and minors report for 1927-28 no students minoring in home economics, while 11 others show but 123 students with home economics as a minor. Two institutions, Alabama Polytechnic Institute and the University of Vermont, account for 60 per cent of the home economics minors reported. The apparent conclusion that there is very little interest in home economics as a minor study would hardly be justified upon the basis of the incomplete data furnished, but the evidence is sufficiently startling to suggest that the matter be given institutional study. It may be that further inquiry would reveal that the offerings of home economics need reexamination from the standpoint of the contribution they might make as a point of secondary emphasis for students who are majoring in other fields. The impression thus produced that home economics is making little appeal to non-home economics majors is modified by the record of the number of students electing one or more courses in home economics. Cornell University reports 1,062 students other than those majoring or minoring in home economics in this group; Utah Agricultural College, 947; University of California, 564; Kansas State Agricultural College, 482; State College of Washington, 309; University of Nebraska, 207; Louisiana State University, 200; University of California at Los Angeles, 144; University of Missouri, 139; University of Minnesota, 125; and the University of New Hampshire, 110. Men Enrolled in Home Economics Although home economics offerings are not generally taken advantage of by men, the increase in the enrollment of men is significant. Seventeen institutions report 555 men enrolled for one or more courses during the year 1926-27. Thirteen institutions report a total enrollment of 636 men for the year 1927-28. Oregon Agricultural College leads with 272. Cornell University reports 227 men enrolled for home economics courses, 123 of whom are registrants in the hotel management curriculum. North Dakota Agricultural College reports 62 men enrolled; Iowa State College and the University of Illinois each, 22. As home economics develops specialized areas of instruction in the social fields, especially in those that are concerned with health and business, and as its science work is more completely integrated upon a college level with home and family activities there seems little reason why the number of men |