The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-04-19

| The pendulum swings SO far this
/ way, SO far that way, and after a time
+ If it stops-stops midway between the
! two points. So it is with the educa-
ton and occupations of womankind as
we'll as mankind. For many years
schools and colleges educated girls
along lines. - far as possible. away
from the home and LONE making, the
ideal of education being classical or
scientific and leading to a degree
which enable the girl to take her place
in the busy life of the big cities or in
office work where a diploma carrying
a degree showing that she had finished
her studies along some line of profess
sional work enabled her to secure a
position. Then there developed the
ideal OF freedom. equal rights and suf-
frage- In America men have. as a
general thing, been willing to grant
women all that they ask in reason
along these lines. over in England we
have the militant suffra gette smash
ing windows. heads, or laws with
equally indiscriminate energy. and try
ing to prove her right to a share in
making new laws by her ability to
break all the old ones.
Now the pendulum in America is
swinging the other way. and within
the past few years a number of states
have established schools of home
making, spending thereon large sums
TOT DuIulnSS, equipment, ana the pest
teachers in all branches of domestic
science. Agricultural colleges and
schools all over the United States are
taking up these departments, and
the attendance in the classes in home
making show that it is a wise move.
Girls want practical education, and
hundreds of them prefer home work to
office work. They realize that a thor
oush understanding of homework will
bring them adequate returns for their
work. There are now more than $500
girls and women studying domestic
science in the various agricultural col
leges in the United States; almost one
fourth of the number are taking the
course at the Kansas Agricultural COL
lege, which was the pioneer school of
the west in this line of work. OF this
number. some 500 or more are taking
the regular four years course in home
economies. About 200 girls and women
some of the women well past middle
life, who have neither the time nor the
the money to take the regular four
year course, are taking the house
keepers course of six months. Many
of the students in other departments
are taking the lecture course in some
one branch of homework.
In order that home work may be
well done, it is advisable that the
prospective worker should be educa
ted along the line in which that work
farm life is not the public speaker,
the politician or the club woman. The
woman who keeps house must be able
to extend influence to the farms of the
community without losing her domes-
ITCHY or without going to an apart
ment house to live in order to study
how to better the condition of other
women who have to work for a hv-
ing.
There has been in the past few years
of a tendency among women |
to believe that the best way to reform, |
elevate. help or eliminate the woman |
worker was by having a bill of some |
sort, kind or description passed by the |
legislature. If all the bills that have |
been suggested by the well-meaning |
for the benefit of working women were |
to be made laws and put into effect |
at once. the problem would be very |
quickly solved. for business organiza-
lions, a general thing, not being
charitable institutions might in self /
defense refuse to employ women under
he terms suggested by the nonwork-
ng sisterhood.
There always has been, and always
Will be. d demand for skilled work
ers in the household, and when girls
Ire taught everything a housewife
should know, from buying the pro-
7isions and furnishings for a home
preparing the meals, seeing that the
'ooms are kept in order, that sani-
airy conditions are such as to be con-
lucive to tealth, that furnishings
such as to insure comfort and the
Equipment for work such as to change
lousework from drudgery to a recog-
lized profession or occupation. it is
dollars to doughnuts'' that d girl who
las finished a course in the home
making department of any recognized
ollege, and has a diploma bearing the
egree VI. S. H. (Mistress of the Sci
nee of Home Making), will stand ten
hances to one in the matrimonial race
-gainst the one who is an accomplish
d brickbht 1hrOwer or Uranium
masher. lsas won the right to vote and
degree of NJ. S. Militant Suffra gette).
However. this is too far in the future
o be other than surniise, but the
act that our schools and colleges and