The broad ax., 1921-06-25

SCnOOlS OF ~ OOAAASAA -
ognized as essential to a well-rounded
curriculum and that earnest efforts
are being expended to raise the stand
ard of work in colored schools,
through more adequate financial SUP
taort and improved supervision, was |
the opinion expressed by Miss Carrie
Alberta Lyford, director of the Hamp-
ton Institute home-economics school,
in her recent address on Home
Economics Education for the Col
ored Girl" delivered before the South
ern Home Economics Association,
which met at George Peabody Col
lege.
Courses in home-making in Negro
schools" said Miss Lyford, "have
been carried on in various parts OF
the South for more than fifty years,
but so scattered have been these et-
forts to train Negro girls to stand
ards of better living, so lacking IN
recognition by the State departments
of education, and so generally thwart-
ed by the absence of definite, care
fully-arranged well-adapted program
that there can be said to have existed
no well-dehned plan of home-econ-
omics education for the Negro girl.
with the appointment of super
visors of colored rural schools IN
every Southern state, with the devel-
opment of recognized home economies
departments in the State normal
schools for Negroes, with the growth
of the home-demonstration work for
Negro women under the u. s. De-
partment of Agriculture, and with the
establishment of vocational home econ
omics under the Federal Board for
Vocational Education, the need for a
definite scheme for home-economics
education for the Negro girl has be-
come increasingly apparent. q.
NEGRO education along all lines
has suffered sorely through lack Of
organized effort and cooperative en-
deavor. Home-economics education
for the Negro has in no sense been
an exception to the prevailing condi-
ton, though special interest in some
phases of the work, funds for main
tenance, and recognition by educators
have all been lacking. In many cases
cooking schools have been LETT with
out stoves, sewing rooms have been
without machines; no provision has
been made for supplies for cooking
or sewing lessons; and State and
county officials too frequently have
known nothing of existing conditions
Learning by Doing.
Early courses in home-making fol
Negro girls were largely taught b,
Northern white women who came
South to aid in the establishment o
industrial schools which were sup
ported by Northern capital. Thes
scattered industrial schools, however
became centers of development 10
the Negro communities in which the
were established but the fact that the
were private institutions deprive
! them of that wide usefulness, whIc
it is alone possible for well-support
ed State Institutions to exist. Sue
institutions as Hampton and IuskC
gee, which have had high degree {
- independence and of freedom froI
binding conditions, have made POI
sible the development of type
education that is full OF suggestion fC
vocational schools today.
/ 1.-THE motto of Hampton, 'Learnin
by Doing has stood for making u:
of all the facilities of daily life f
training. Thus, from the first, Il
girls were carefully trained in vario'
processes of house work, even thous
no formal courses OF home economi
were developed Such training h
continued to form an important pa
of the -home-economics education
Hampton girls and of the girls IN
the weIl-conducted industrial school:
= Miss Lyford paid warm tribute
: the pioneer home-economics wo
which had been done IN Norto
g, Newport News, and other Southe
cities during the past twenty-h
wears. She also commended the VI
liable work of the State supervise
u of rural colored schools and I
Jeanes industrial supervising teaehe
+ who aim to improve the Negro g
her home and her community.
Modem Home-Eeonomics Course
THE home-economics course, S
Miss Lyford, "that does not make
girl a healthier, better-dressed, m'
industrious, and a more honest
fails of its first purpose. The 6
who has learned to care for and
control herself and to spend
money wisely has received the ful
amental training necessary before
can be prepared to take her place
the head of a home or to assn
those wider responsibilities VII
make for better community life. ]
Negro home viii show the results
school training that is effective I
- only as it does, viii the needed
- provement in community life