The Colorado statesman., 1917-01-20
INSTRUCTION FOR
| FARM women next
New Line of Work to Be Under
taken by Uncle Sans Agri-
cultural Experts.
TEACHERS will DODGE FADS
Instruction Will Be Confined to Sub
jects of Practical Benefit Would
Save Time, Money and
Labor.
BY ELIZABETH VAN eENTHUYsEN.

BY ELIZABETH VAN BENTHuYSEN.
Thirty-three northern and western
states will get the chief benefit from a
new line of work that has been
planned by the federal department oil
agriculture in which the chief consid-
Grafton is the instruction of farm Wom-
en- in home economics.
Miss Florence E. Ward has been
placed at the head of the new task
She has been prominent for many
years in educational work and is be-
lieved to be thoroughly equipped for
the latest venture in which Uncle Sam
is embarking to make the farms OF the
country more profitable and produc-
tive. The idea is in line with presi-
dent wilson recent pronouncement be-
fore the farmers of the land.
Home demonstration work is the
title of the department over which
Miss Ward presides. The Smith
Lever act of 1914 made possible the
work for the women. The law provid-
ed for the use of government funds in
aiding the housewife to increase her
efficiency and her stock of knowledge.
1t was the first important concession
made to the wife of the farmer ana
may be taken as a natural outgrowth
of the progress that womans suffrage
has made in recent years. Once the
farm was run as though it were mere
ly a mans affair. The new order
takes woman's work on the farm into
thorough and important consideration.
Teach Women to Do Part.
The object of the venture is to pre-
vent women from failing in their part
Of the communal life. She is to be
instructed in the keeping of accounts,
In the state of markets, the channels
for the purchase of food and clothing
and in becoming an efficient aid to the
farmer in handling his own work.
In the first study of the new de-
partment 1t is stated that the average
work of n farm woman covers ten
hours day-Quite an Illuminating
statement in view of the nationwide
fight by the labor element for an eight
hour day. The demonstrators to be
sent out by the government will seek
to avoid technical, laboratory terms in
their instructions. They will dodge
fadS and seek to confine themselves to
the things that farm women can use
today. They will assume that women
of the farm have brains as well as
hands and are prepared to use them
to get more important results.
The government is seeking to get
practical women on the roster of DEM
onstrators. Women are wanted who
can go into rural schoolhouses, face a
dozen practical, able women and teach
them something worth while that they
do not already know better than the
teacher.
Obviously the task is great. Most
women raised on n farm are not be-
hind in getting the most from the
least. they once had to do so and in
many cases have to yet. The new
teachers must teach the best things
socially and economically and carry
the very best light into the rural COM
munities that can be afforded.
Save Time, Labor and Money.
The keynote of the governments
venture is to teach women to save
time, labor and money.
That means, as a corollary, to make
time, to make leisure and to make
money.
The program of work calls for this
schedule:
March, April and May-Poultry pro-
duction, gardening, keeping the home
grounds and home sanitation.
June, July and August-Canning
food, sanitation, the dairy, home laun-
dry work.
September, October and November
Clothing, food and the cooperative
purchase of things needed for each
community.
December, January and February
Heat in the farm home, community
life, education and home management.
This is indeed an ambitious pro-
gram and / shall watch 1t with pc
culiar interest, born of many years of
effort in this service for the better
ment of the farm, the garden and the