Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1896-03-14
THE Home.MAklNe PROBLEM.
BY Teaching the Girls a Reform In
Housekeeping May Be Wrought.

by Teaching the Girls a Reform In
Housekeeping May Be Wrought.
Mrs. Eta Morse Hudders holds
new key to the domestic problem. 1T
is education, of course" she said the
other day. But it is the education of
our future, rather than our present
servants. 1t concerns itself with the
children, those who have nothing to I'M
learn and no bad habits to get rid of,
whose minds are still pliable and in.-
questionable. For example, have
found it an utter impossibility to teach
full grown woman how to hold a
broom properly, and not one full grown
woman in hundred holds broom
properly. She presses upon it and
holds it sideways and digs the dirt up
out of the carpet in a manner as revolt
ing as it is impotent. What she should
do is to bold the broom straight up and
down, and sweep with short, light,
quick strokes close to the carpet. It's
just the same way with hundreds of
other domestic details. Women are
not only hopelessly ignorant of them,
but apparently are incapable of mas
tering them unless the training begins
at an early age. My plan proposes to
establish cooking schools in all the
thickly settled dictricts of the city,
in which school children may be taught
not only how to prepare foods in the
best way, but what foods to buy in or
der to attain the greatest amount of
nutriment at the least cost. The prac-
teal force of the plan is at once appar-
ent, as an article on Our Girls in Tene
ment Houses says: If we begin to
train little hands as we'll as little minds,
and wait long enough, we shall have
trained, if not reformed, grandmoth
ers. The working girls clubs are do
ing good work, but they do not begin
on material early enough to achieve
the best results. It is impossible to
overestimate the value of having the
earliest teaching correct To my
mind, it is the solution of the domestic
problem, which is nothing more or
less than skilled service in the home.
"By domestic problem however,
do not alone mean the servant prob
lem That is, indeed, a portentous
question, but not SO portentous nor SO
important as the domestic question.
When the latter is solved it will mean
reform in a hundred ways. More than
half the trouble of this world comes
from women not knowing how to be
homekeepers - not housekeepers =
though precious few of them are quail
flied for that but perservers and
cheerishers of the home. This is true
of all classes of society, but especially
of the poorer classes. Give a work.
iT,C
q quiet, comfortable, do-as-he-pleases
evening, and he will be much less like
ly to frequent the liquor saloon. That
treads close upon the heels of the tenn
perance question, and in much more
practical MANNER than most answers
to it do. But the wife must know
how to provide and prepare the dinner,
and also how to insure the evenings
comfort. All this constitutes home
making, an accomplishment that is,
unfortunately, much out of fashion.
but which is the keystone to nothing
less than national prosperity. This
is the object of our plan-home-mak
ing. Of course, our great and imper-
alive need is funds. The manufac-
turers have already donated enough |
appufTenanceS TO equip several K1Ucn-
ems, but we want to employ the most
competent teachers, and to do that
takes money. In time, we hope that
the same plan will be adopted by other
cities. Every community must see tho
value of promoting the home spirit,
and that can only be done by making |
homes attractive. Why, at present,
the average child of the slums doesn't |
know the meaning of the word home"
N. Y. Sun.