» HOUSEHOLD ARTS AND SCHOOL LUNCHES THE SURVEY COMMITTEE OF THE CLEVELAND FOUNDATION Charles E. Adams, Chairman Thomas G. Fitzsimons Myrta L. Jones Bascom Little Victor W. Sincere Arthur D. Baldwin, Secretary James R. Garfield, Counsel Allen T. Burns, Director THE EDUCATION SURVEY Leonard P. Ayres, Director CLEVELAND EDUCATION SURVEY HOUSEHOLD ARTS AND SCHOOL LUNCHES BT ALICE C. BOUGHTON nOSTO^ COLU^GB U^^^' THE SURVEY COMMITTEE OF THE CLEVELAND FOUNDATION CLEVELAND • OHIO 23 1916 Copyright, 1916, by the survey committee of the cleveland foundation / 1962S9 WM- F. FELL CO- PRINTERS PHILADELPHLA. anSTOM COOEQB UBRAfW wSnUT HILU MASS. FOREWORD This report on '^Household Arts and School Lunches'' is one of the 25 sections of the report of the Education Survey of Cleveland conducted by the Survey Committee of the Cleveland Foundation in 1915. Twenty-three of these sec- tions will be pubUshed as separate monographs. In addition there will be a larger volume giving a siunmary of the findings and recommendations relating to the regular work of the pubUc schools, and a second similar volume giving the sum- mary of those sections relating to industrial education. Copies of all these publications may be obtained from the Cleveland Foundation. They may also be obtained from the Division of Education of the Russell Sage Foundation, New York City. A complete Ust will be found in the back of this volume, together with prices. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Foreword 5 List of Tables 10 List of Illustrations 10 CHAPTER I. Household Arts in Elementary Schools 11 Purpose of this report and method used 11 Growth in the United States 12 Growth in Cleveland 14 Present instruction 15 Centers 16 Supervision 18 The teaching body 19 Teachers' salaries 22 Attitude of principals toward household arts 23 Attitude of Cleveland toward household arts 24 Attitude of children 25 Course of study 26 Practical suggestions regarding the work 30 Model housekeeping apartments 31 Elementary industrial schools 35 Summary 36 II. Relation of Household Arts to Elementary Education 40 Homemaking versus housekeeping 40 Education for homemaking 43 Function of household arts and its two aspects 48 Selection of subject matter 50 A housekeeping course in the junior high school 55 Summary 58 CHAFTEB PAGB III. Infant Hygiene 61 Arguments for teaching infant hygiene in elemen- tary schools 63 What the elementary school is doing 63 Infant hygiene and the work it displaces 65 Adult responsibihty and the adolescent girl 66 Time when specialized training should be given 68 Hygiene for boys and girls alike 68 Effectiveness of baby saving institutions 69 Summary 71 rV. Household Arts in Cleveland High Schools 74 Space, physical equipment, and costs 75 Course of study in technical schools 76 West Technical lunchroom used for vocational work 82 Trade work in foods and sanitation 85 Courses of study in academic high schools 87 Teaching body 89 Present plan unsatisfactory 91 Summary 94 V. Relation of Household Arts to Secondary Education 98 Education for self support 98 Education for social relationships 102 Education for individual personahty 107 Moral equivalents for home "110 Summary 114 VI. Elementary School Lunch Service 116 Elementary school lunches from two points of view 118 Present situation in Cleveland 120 School meals as supplements or substitutes for home meals 122 Kinds of lunches and by whom provided 124 Lunchrooms and preparation of food 129 CHAPTER PAGE Food natural need of all children 131 School lunch or street lunch 132 Food clinics 135 Medical inspection cooperation desirable 136 Lunch service a big business 136 Consohdated lunch service 138 Summary 139 VII. High School Lunch Service 143 School lunches not new in Cleveland 145 Two distinct poUcies with regard to school lunch service 146 Extent of service in Cleveland 147 Standards for high school meals 148 Lunch menus 149 Service 151 Location and equipment of lunchrooms 153 Condition and care 155 Lighting 156 Ventilation 156 Working force 157 Concessionnaires 158 Supervision 159 High school lunches a big business 159 Place of lunch service in the school system 162 School cooperation 164 Greater use of lunchrooms possible 165 Waste of present system 166 Economy of consolidated lunch service 167 Summary 168 LIST OF TABLES TABLE PAGE 1. Cost to Cleveland Board of Education for two lunches a day for open air children 127 2. Cost to Cleveland Board of Education for one hot dish at noon for blind children 128 3. Cost to Cleveland Board of Education for noon meal for crippled children at Willson School 129 4. What children in other cities spent at school in 1914- 15 136 5. Profit made by lunchroom concessionnaires in Cleve- land during 1914-15 158 6. Average receipts per student for seven cities with supervised high school service, 1914-15 160 7. Amount and cost of business done by Cleveland high school lunchrooms during 1914-15 161 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE A cooking center in a basement 16 One of the several sewing centers in elementary schools 18 New type of equipment in use in schools such as Eagle and Mound 32 Open air lunch at the Eagle School 120 Lunches for children, — the street kind versus the school kind 132 Basement lunchroom at East Technical High School 144 Household arts students at West Technical High School prepare and serve noon lunch 154 The school lunchrooms must compete with the bakers' wagons throughout the city 158 The new Allegheny High School lunchroom in Pittsburgh 164 Scott High School lunchroom in Toledo 166 In Allegheny High School in Pittsburgh 400 pupils are served in about six minutes 168 HOUSEHOLD ARTS AND SCHOOL LUNCHES CHAPTER I HOUSEHOLD ARTS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS This is the first separate report on household arts made by any school survey. In other surveys the subject has been reported in connection with the cur- riculum as a whole. For Cleveland, however, there are several reasons why an extensive study is both fitting and timely. Purpose of This Report and Method Used Cleveland was one of the first cities in the country to introduce household arts in its elementary schools, and at the present time all girls who finish the gram- mar school have such instruction during their last four years there. Rapid development in Cleveland has been closely paralleled by an increasing interest in household arts teaching throughout the country. This interest has been particularly noticeable in the past five years because of a growing tendency to con- 11 sider household arts for girls the equivalent of voca- tional education for boys. Cleveland's long experience should make possible a study of the aims, methods, and results of the sub- ject and a consideration of how far it has a distinctive contribution to make to elementary education, how flexible it is, and what are its tendencies and future possibilities. The purpose of this study is not to compare Cleveland with other cities, nor one Cleve- land school with another, but to picture the present situation and to describe work done; to seek out mo- tives, and weigh purposes, methods, and results; to meet present and future needs by getting at existing situations and forecasting future developments. The first section of this report consists of the first two chapters. The first pictures household arts in Cleveland elementary schools and how people there consider it. The second deals with the purpose and function of household arts as it relates to the ele- mentary school. It outUnes the scope of household arts and endeavors to select from the mass of material that which will further the fundamental purpose of the elementary school, to enable children to partici- pate in a great society. Growth in the United States The first impetus to household arts training was given in Boston, New York, and other eastern cities where cooking classes for ladies were organized in the early eighties. In the same decade philanthropic 12 classes in cooking and sewing were started in several cities which were merged into the first manual train- ing classes in cooking and sewing in both elementary and high schools. In the past 10 years this idea of manual training has given way to that of vocational training, and courses in household arts, which em- phasize the vocational nature of this work, are in- creasing in number. By 1875 the struggle for the higher education of women had been largely won, and trained women everywhere were beginning to realize the economic value of women's work in the household. Very naturally they wished to emphasize its dignity and importance to both home and society. They saw that one way to accompUsh their purpose was to get academic recognition and professional standing for women's work, and during the early years of the movement their activities were mainly directed to- ward this end. In the United States the leaders were, among others, Maria Parloa, Ellen H. Richards, Mary H. Abel, and Dr. H. O. Atwater. Their earnest efforts gradually brought about a growing interest in house- hold economics throughout the country. Training schools for teachers of household arts and science began to be opened. In 1890 three normal schools were giving courses; in 1900, 12 were doing so, and by 1914 practically every state normal school in the country had such a department. Now colleges are be- ginning to give academic recognition to this branch. Finally, in 1909, the American Home Economics 13 Association was formed with the purpose, as given in the constitution, ''of bringing together those in- terested in the bettering of conditions in the home, the school, the public institution, and the com- munity/' Growth in Cleveland Household arts in Cleveland had a humble beginning. In 1884, through private initiative, a kitchen garden was opened in the basement of Unity Church, and cooking was taught to a small class of girls from the neighborhood. This first class was so successful that in 1886 the Cleveland Domestic Training Associa- tion was formed. It opened rooms at 79 Superior Street and the Board of Education gave permission for three classes of children from Rockwell School, located just around the corner, to go there for cook- ing lessons. The following year, 1887, the cooking department of the Cleveland Domestic Training As- sociation became a regular branch of the Cleveland Manual Training School, which had been opened in January of that same year. The school was started and largely supported by private initiative. It re- ceived state aid, in return for which free instruction was given to high school students. In 1893 the first grade centers in cooking were organized at Hicks and Outhwaite schools and new centers were opened year by year until at the present time there are 20 regular and seven special centers which accommodate the school population. 14 Present Instruction Girls who stay in school until they have finished the eighth grade receive four years' instruction in house- hold arts. They have sewing in the fifth and sixth grades and cooking and housewifery, including laun- dry work, in the seventh and eighth. With few ex- ceptions sev/ing is taught in the classroom by the grade teacher while the boys are having their weekly manual training lesson, but for cooking the majority of girls go to nearby domestic science centers. There are 20 such centers in Cleveland, each one of which is in charge of a trained teacher of household science. They are equipped to accommo- date not more than 24 to 26 children at a time, and handle on an average three classes a day. Girls have one 90 minute lesson a week, so that a center cares for 15 classes and approximately 300 children a week. Last year, (1914-15), 6,200 girls from the seventh and eighth grades attended these centers, while 8,200 others from the fifth and sixth grades had sewing. The great majority of these were taught sewing in their own classrooms by regular grade teachers. At eight schools, including the two industrial schools, — Mound and Brownell, — the classes were taught by visiting teachers of household arts. In addition to the 20 cooking centers described, there are seven others: two in the industrial schools pro- viding for 156 children, two training classes for morons at Meyer and the Council AlUance Settle- ment where 76 are cared for, work for backward chil- dren at Longwood, and two model apartments at 15 Marion and Eagle schools handling together 223 more. Girls who attend these schools spend more time on household arts than do those who go to regular centers. Centers Besides the 20 centers equipped for the regular classes in cooking and housekeeping, there are seven more planned especially to meet the needs of particu- lar groups of children. Centers are scattered widely over the city, and each one accommodates children from its own and nearby schools. In more than half of the schools household science centers are in the main school building; in the rest they share a small out-building with manual training classes. When these centers were opened, the method of bookkeeping was such that initial cost of equip- ment was not recorded. The estimated cost, how- ever, is $1,200 for kitchen equipment for each center, and $22 per year for renewed equipment, necessary repairs, and painting. With almost no exception the rooms are strikingly cheerful and well kept, and this is all the more impressive since a number are in base- ments partly below the street level. Schools as a whole are well cared for, quiet, and attractive; the paint is fresh and the floors are clean. Household science rooms are Ught and airy; all of them have windows on two sides and a number have them on three. The visitor entering the room is immediately impressed with the constant care and thought put into keeping centers in such excellent shape. 16 (D GG o b£) g O o The first of these centers was opened in 1893, the last in 1915, which results in a wide variety in fixed equipment and arrangement of rooms, but in spite of this teachers find little fault. A few prefer the old '^ hollow square'' arrangement of desks to the new way, where groups of six work at a table desk, and do their cooking at family size gas ranges placed in the middle of the room. The teachers' main objec- tion to this plan seems to be that it makes more difficult the handling of small children, or those who do not speak English well. Cleveland has apparently not yet been stirred by the controversy now raging throughout the country as to which is better for teaching purposes, this older kitchen laboratory such as Cleveland uses most generally, or the newer model apartment such as those at Marion, Eagle, and Murray Hill. Advocates of the two methods advance strong arguments in favor of their respective posi- tions, and when groups of household arts teachers assemble in conference there is apt to be lively dis- cussion regarding the merits of the two plans. So far neither side has succeeded in converting the other, but in their attempts to do so they are producing, in the professional journals, an interesting literature on the subject that gives in detail the strong points of both methods. In the Mound and Brownell schools, and in several of the new schools, rooms are arranged for household arts. Equipment is simple, and consists of tables with locker drawers, sewing machines, and locker and display cases around the walls. Girls in these schools 2 17 have a special course of study and spend more time on sewing than do the other children who have their sewing lessons in the regular classrooms. Supervision The supervisor of household science and arts is an educational officer and is directly responsible to the superintendent of schools. She is appointed by the Board of Education on recommendation of the superintendent and this appointment is renewed each year. She prepares the course of study for both science and arts, holds teachers' meetings, and super- vises, through visits and individual classroom con- ferences, the work of special teachers in these sub- jects and the regular teachers in sewing. The super- visor in conference with and subject to the office of the director of schools selects equipment and plans the arrangement of household science and arts rooms in new centers and arranges for upkeep of rooms and equipment in older centers. Household arts extends through four years of the elementary school. This past year 8,200 girls had sewing with their regular teachers, and 6,200 others attended the household science centers. Of these, 2,500 had a course in infant hygiene given jointly by the teachers and the school nurses. To handle the clerical work of the office, the supervisor has half the time of one clerk. This is inadequate, and the super- visor is, therefore, forced to spend a large amount of her time keeping up with routine clerical work to 18 o o -a xn >i c3 > c c C the neglect of her heavy supervisory duties. At stated intervals she meets special teachers in con- ference, but grade teachers, for whose work in sewing she is likewise responsible, she sees only in hurried visits to their classrooms, in each of which she spends from 10 to 20 minutes each semester. In conse- quence of this there is danger that, as the depart- ment grows, she will cease to be a supervisor and be- come merely an inspector. Such a situation denotes an organic weakness. An adequate clerical force and the appointment of an assistant supervisor of work in clothing and textiles would go far to remedy the present condition which, if it continues, will in time sap the life and vitality of this department. The Teaching Body The household arts corps consists of a supervisor and 31 teachers, — 27 teaching cooking, the remaining four, sewing. These women make a distinctly favor- able showing in comparison with teachers of manual training and those in the regular grades. They are young and attractive; the majority are well under 30, and all have had special training for their work. Indeed, this small group is rich in the variety of its preparation and points of view, for it represents 15 different training schools for household arts teaching, and half of these institutions, such as Teachers Col- lege and Simmons College, are of college rank. Twenty-three of the girls have had work at those or similar institutions, the rest are graduates of normal 19 schools. In addition to their specialized work, 14 have had experience as grade teachers. The very happy relationship between teachers and children which exists throughout the whole system is at once apparent on entering these classrooms. Teachers say they have to struggle to get the girls to be orderly with their work or particular in their dishwashing or prompt at class; never that they have difficulty in managing them. Principals are unani- mous in their praise of the way in which household arts teachers deal with the many problems involved in handling 300 young girls. There is, too, a very real loyalty to the department, and all unite in an effort to carry out the program as given them. The teachers are conscientious, and painstaking and want to teach the course as planned. Herein lies their greatest weakness. They are mainly concerned with methods involved in their teaching, but seldom, if ever, question reasons for teaching the particular material selected. This trait, however, is not pe- culiar to household arts teachers, but permeates the whole teaching profession, and is one of the chief difficulties against which supervisors have to contend. The majority of household arts teachers with whom the writer has come in contact, — and this appUes not only to Cleveland, — seem to have little perspective with regard to their subject. If ever they do stop to question, they concern themselves with the hows rather than with the whats or whys of their work. For a subject like household arts, which draws its material from a broad field to meet the varied 20 needs of widely different groups, such an attitude on the part of its teachers is a serious handicap. Every individual teacher should be keenly aware of the many problems involved in a wise selection and pre- sentation of subject matter, and, if she is to do in- telligent as well as earnest work in her field, she must realize the situation as one to be faced by her as well as by her supervisor. Every teacher should have a distinct end in mind toward the fulfillment of which she is bending all effort, and a clear idea of tools and materials required to bring her plans to fruition. Instead of this there is blankness and misunder- standing when questions as to the general function and purpose of household arts are raised. The fol- lowing is a case in point. The lesson was on peanut cookies. The teacher was on the alert for any suggestions which would enable her to get those cookies into the oven five minutes sooner than usual. Conversation passed on to the question of why peanut cookies were being taught at this particular time. The answer came readily enough: ^'Peanut cookies occur in lesson 26 in the regular course.'' ^^Well, then,'' said the per- severing visitor, '^why are they in the course? Do they help illustrate some particular point you want to bring out? Are they especially easy, or are they valuable in themselves as being something which every girl should know how to make? Why do you think they were chosen rather than sugar cookies? But perhaps you have a hst from which to choose what seems to you most suitable for the particular 21 class you are teaching?" For a moment the teacher looked bewildered, then she brightened up and said, ''You know we don't make the course, that is done by the supervisor, we just teach it.'' To the writer it seems as if more time should be spent by teachers of household arts in trying to find out specifically what their subject has to contribute to the girl's education, what its aims are, and in how far results obtained check up with the ends desired. Individual conferences between supervisor and teachers, together with departmental and committee work carrying responsibiUty, might go a long way to- wards arousing and fixing in the minds of teachers a critical attitude toward their work, but for teachers to go far in this constructive criticism requires a broader outlook and a more intensive social and economic preparation than the majority of them have had. Their training emphasized technique along the Unes of natural science. This other viewpoint would place an equal if not a greater emphasis on social science. Such supplementary courses Cleveland teachers cannot get on the salaries they are now re- ceiving. Teachers' Salaries The schools have done well in getting picked teachers at bargain prices who, as a body, are as well prepared as any such group of equal size elsewhere. Teachers of household arts are regular teachers and are eligible for pensions on the same basis as other teachers. They have had, as a rule, a longer preparation for 22 their work than the average teacher of manual train- ing. They begin with $500 a year and in 10 years reach their maximum, $1,000, while the manual training teachers start with $900, and after six years get $1,500. Neither this initial $500 nor any amount between $500 and $750, which is what 20 out of these 31 teachers receive, is sufficient to allow them to support themselves and at the same time supple- ment their present training by extension courses or summer work. It is too low to hold permanently ex- perienced teachers, or very able ones. Moreover, household arts is a new and rapidly developing field. No teacher can expect to do good work without keep- ing in touch with its newer phases by attending con- ferences, at least once in two years, taking summer school work, or being a member of various educa- tional and scientific associations and subscribing to their periodicals. The teacher of househola arts in Cleveland elementary schools can barely live on her salary; she has little margin for saving and none at all for development. Attitude of Principals Toward Household Arts Principals are uniformly interested in the subjects of clothing, textiles, and foods and sanitation. They favor the work and with few exceptions approve of the two years' course in both household arts and science. Some go even further and think this teach- ing should start sooner, — in the third or fourth year, — or have more time given to it in the upper grades. They favor it because they consider that it teaches 23 girls to be neat and clean of person and about the house, and that it gives them an interest in house- hold affairs, control over details of household man- agement, and some standards for judging the quaUty and importance of such work. Principals of schools with foreign populations say that through cooking and sewing the girls become ac- quainted with certain American ways and standards which reach their homes in no other way. Several of these principals said that it was a great help in keep- ing up attendance of girls near the legal age for work, and for this reason, if for no other, they would favor it, at least in the foreign and industrial districts. They felt, however, that since the subject was largely a technical one, their criticism was only of general interest. With few exceptions they were genuinely startled when asked if they considered that the reasons they had given for favoring the subject were sufficient to warrant its place in the crowded curriculum of the elementary school, or in how far they had been able to judge the results obtained by this teaching as compared with those of other special subjects. The principals grew much interested in this point of view; said they had never had occasion to consider the matter before, and thought that an at- tempt to do so would be well worth the effort. Attitude of Cleveland Toward Household Arts In general parents, club women, and social agencies are interested and favorable in their attitude toward 24 household arts teaching. Many parents are im- mensely ^^practicar' about it. They say that it teaches girls to be more useful at home. In foreign districts the parents will sometimes let girls stay in school longer if they are getting something useful. Their feeling is that since the girls are destined to marry, it is better for them to be at home with their mothers or elsewhere at work than learning merely book knowledge at school. Unless the school gives something which helps the girl matrimonially, many parents concern themselves little, if any, about the girFs education. They are not troubled as to whether she likes the work or gets any- thing of value for herself from it. Attitude of Children Cooking is generally popular with girls. Sewing they do not like so well for it offers less variety and delayed returns. In cooking at least one or two new dishes are prepared each lesson, but it takes many lessons to make an apron or an undergarment. Then, too, the sewing is generally taught in the regular classrooms, and for cooking the children leave the room and fre- quently the building. So the cooking lesson is some- thing to look forward to. The rooms are different and attractive, the lesson, by its very nature, is much less formal than the routine work, and it is part of the game to eat the product of one's own hands. Certain immediate results of this teaching are noticeable. The children learn to do easy household 25 tasks, cook plain food, set the table and serve a meal, mend their clothes and make simple garments, but do not become adept at doing any one of them. They are encouraged to try at home the things they have learned to do at school, but there is no uni- formity about this home practice. Teachers empha- size it or not, according to how important they think it is, and how much opportunity for such practice neighborhood homes offer. The claim is not infrequently made that household arts has a marked effect on the girFs later Ufe in that it teaches her to give thought to the care of her future home. Household arts should give the girl standards and does give her a certain technique in the handling of household problems, but that she carries over what she has learned from the grammar school to her own home, estabUshed perhaps 10 years later, is seriously open to question. Household arts is a com- paratively new subject. Its distinctive purpose has yet to be clearly defined and its usefulness measured. Course of Study The course of study for both household science and arts was being re-shaped when the Survey was in progress, and with the opening of school in Sep- tember, 1915, a new course went into effect. The old course in household science has already been abandoned, so it would be a waste of time to criticize it. The new one is only tentative and will be all year in the making. Any discussion of it, there- 26 fore, will have to be general and apply to point of view rather than to choice or handling of subject matter. In the past the approved method of making a course of study was to take from a well-stocked mind a neat collection of facts which could be arranged in orderly and logical sequence and so given to the child, such as the following: Lesson I A. Kitchen equipment Acquaint class with its use, place, and ar- rangement B. Measurements Use of salt and water C. Dishwashing Wash clean dishes from the closet D. Uniforms Kind and care Lesson II Five food principles a. Names b. Where they occur c. Use in body Beverages — coffee, tea, and lemonade Lesson III Starch a. Use in body b. Prepare 1. Plain toast 2. Buttered toast 3. Water toast 4. Milk toast 5. Creamed toast 27 In such a fashion the old course went on its deadly way, for in their desire to be logical the makers over- looked the psychological. Apparently they forgot that the way they themselves learned to measure, cook, and wash dishes was by measuring, cooking, and washing dishes when there was a real reason for doing so, and some sort of a penalty involved in not doing the task well. The new course of study for Cleveland is very different from this older type. Its aim is frankly practical. Its emphasis is on teaching the girls how to buy and cook those staple foods which are the basis of the average American dietary. Meat is the first food studied, because it is far more important for a girl to know how to buy and handle meat than how to make tea and toast. When the class has learned how to handle simple foods and combine them in plain wholesome meals, and not until then, does theory begin to have a promi- nent place in the lessons. Children probably get as much theory as they got in the other course, but now it is introduced when they have some means for checking it up with the practices they know will work. There seems little room for doubt that this plan will be not only more interesting to the class, but more valuable as well. This new course of study involves the same outlay for materials as did the former one, — an average of two cents per child per lesson. A discussion of household arts and its relation to the garment trades is covered in other parts of the 28 Survey,* and so only a brief account of this work is given here. The household arts course is in even a more fluid condition than that in cooking. There are only four special teachers for this subject, and they divide their time among Brownell, Eagle, Fowler, Fullerton, Kennard, Mound, Warren, and Willson Cripple schools. Children at all other schools are taught by the grade teachers. In its present form the course which special teachers use is planned so as to include a certain amount of textile work as well as practice in handling materials. Children do various kinds of mending, make uniforms for use in cooking classes, and other simple machine and handmade garments, as well as fancy articles, — embroidered, knitted, or crocheted. Teachers stress the value and attractiveness of per- sonal neatness and endeavor to train girls to keep their clothes in good repair by encouraging them to bring mending of any sort to class. A simple course is planned for the grade teachers. They give almost no textile theory, nor machine or elaborate hand work, but confine themselves to mending, plain sewing, and buttonhole-making, and making very simple garments, such as aprons and caps for household science. So much for the subject matter of both kinds. There is still the whole question of emphasis. Where shall the emphasis be put, — on production or use? Shall all the girls be perfected in skilled ability to cook, * "The Garment Trades" and "Dressmaking and Milli- nery" by Edna Bryner. 29 sew, and sweep, or be given standards concerning cooking, sewing, sweeping, and the other technique of housekeeping? Which is more vital for them, to know how to make a good loaf of bread, or how to recognize good bread when they see it? The view- point of the present report is that general intelligent understanding is more important than detailed skill in accomplishment. The object of the work is to have the girls learn to know by doing. Practical Suggestions Regarding the Work Children are expected to wear a plain white apron with a bib, and an attractive little white cap in cook- ing class. They make them in the sixth grade as part of their household arts work so that every child who has had sewing is provided with her uniform when she starts household science. In all but a few of the classes visited, however, a number of children were without aprons and more without caps. This gave an untidy look to an otherwise very orderly and in- terested group. It is not easy to get children to remember their uniforms and keep them clean, but it can be done if teachers are sufl&ciently insistent about the matter. These uniforms are attractive, but they are im- practical. Colored aprons are much better than white ones for most kinds of household work. A simpler apron, in one piece, would be both easier to make and to launder, and just as effective as the one now used. As for the caps, they are attractive, but 30 they serve no other purpose. If uniforms are for the purpose of making household science attractive to children through an appeal to their instinct to dress up, those used do excellently, but if they are strictly practical in character, their useful characteristics should not be sacrificed to their esthetic qualities. Far more important than uniforms is the question of notebooks. Every child has a notebook in which she writes recipes, dictated directions, and spon- taneous notes. Besides being inaccurate, this is an extravagant way in which to spend 10 or 15 per cent of the 90 minutes per week given up to household arts. Printed lesson leaves distributed each week and fitted into an adjustable notebook are cheap, accu- rate, and in permanent form. They do not take the place of careful directions from the teacher, nor need they be ironclad as to order or usage. They serve, however, as a basis of departure for the teacher, and save her time and that of the class. For many years cities like Philadelphia, New York, and Buffalo have followed such a plan, and have found it highly satis- factory. It need not be costly, for technical school students, as in Philadelphia, can do the printing. Teachers admit that they could use those 10 to 15 additional minutes to great advantage in review or other work. Model Housekeeping Apartments The two model housekeeping apartments are of special interest, for by their different arrangement 31 they mark off two distinct viewpoints which are causing a deal of heated discussion among edu- cators. The first of these apartments was opened at Marion School in a Russian Jewish district. The second floor of a two-story building across the way was turned into a model apartment. Walls were tinted, woodwork painted, floors and plumbing put in order, and the place equipped with furniture well within the means of neighborhood families. The plan for Eagle School and the new Murray Hill annex represents an entirely different viewpoint from Marion. These schools are also in congested districts, this time Italian, but pains have been taken to make these apartments, which are in the main buildings, as convenient in arrangement and fitting as are such suites in new and well-built apartment houses. In each case there is a definite reason for the plan followed. The group advocating the neighborhood apartment do so because they think that girls should be taught to make the best of conditions as they are, and that if they are given an elaborate equipment they will become discouraged and dissatisfied with the home situation and derive no benefit from the course. The other group take the opposite stand. They want girls to become intelligently dissatisfied with poor home conditions. They believe that such dis- content is a neighborhood leaven which makes for progress, and that the '^slums'' will never be done 32 o CD 'bi) a 02 o o o 03 0) away with until the people who now live there refuse to do so longer. The two groups are not so antagonistic as at first they seem. Both have a point to make and so far as they go both are right, but they stop short; they do not dig deep enough under method to uncover the real root of the matter, the end in view. The point and purpose of household arts does not lie in this or that way of doing things, but in enabling girls to gain control over the details of daily living. They should be rendered capable of making intelligent choice between different kinds of action. A man needs to have his shoes shined. There are two ways open: one to shine his own shoes, the other to pay the Italian on the street corner to do it for him. Again, the housewife's standards call for fre- quent changes of linen. There are just two ways for her to have it, either she can do her own washing, or pay some one to do it for her. In both cases the end to be obtained, — clean shoes, clean clothes, — is where the emphasis belongs. For the person who has not 10 cents to spend for a shine, there is just one way to get it: do it himself, and it is for him to decide whether or not the shine is worth the effort. One time it may be, another time it may not. For the man with a dime, however, there is a choice. He can have a shine by spending his strength, or 10 cents, and if he is sensible he spends the one which at that moment is worth less to him. The same thing apphes to the housewife who wants clean clothes. If she has a choice, she decides which is 3 33 worth less to her, money or strength. She then saves the one and spends the other. If she does not have a choice but still yearns for clean linen, she must wash it herself. When the school undertakes to teach girls house- hold management, it tries to present to them, clearly and forcefully, just this situation. For Euclid Avenue clean clothes and clean shoes present no problem. Murray Hill pays a good stiff price in manual labor for either one. The statement was made that the two viewpoints concerning model housekeeping apartments were not necessarily antagonistic, since their difference is one of method, not purpose. One side held that simple equipment, such as community homes afforded, should be used, the other the best possible tools for doing the work in hand. The solution Ues in combina- tion. Emphasis belongs on understanding the job, and knowing about the tools that can be used. No girl should be allowed to burn oatmeal because she has no double boiler, nor iron a waist badly because she has to use an old-fashioned flatiron instead of an electric one. On the other hand it is her right as an individual and as a member of a progressive society to be shown the easiest possible way to do good work. The standard should be the objective one of good work; not the subjective one of good intentions. The model apartment should train girls to make the best of what they have, and at the same time show them how much more can be accomplished in less time with less effort when suitable tools are used. It is a 34 valuable adjunct to teaching domestic science and arts in the schools. Elementary Industrial Schools Brownell and Mound are handling their work in somewhat different fashion from other elementary- schools. Brownell especially stresses industrial work for both boys and girls. It draws children 13 and 14 years old from all over the city. Generally these children have done poor academic work and are sent to be given a chance in another direction. Frequently the change is what they need. They do well in handwork and show marked improvement in their studies. The course is a two year one and corresponds to the seventh and eighth years in other schools. Girls have both household science and arts the first year. The second year they specialize in one or the other, having a 90 minute lesson daily. This extra time girls spend not on theory, but on gaining skill and proficiency in organizing and handling the practical work. The school records show that a good many of the girls make immediate use of this training in wage- earning occupations. They go out as housemaids or nurses, dressmakers or milUners' assistants, or into large department stores where their textile work is of value. Their weekly wages vary greatly, but $5 per week is a fair starting point, with board for the girls who go out as housemaids. Follow-up records are new, but in the few available there are several in- 35 stances where girls earned $8 or $10 per week within two years after leaving school. Summary 1. Field work for this report was begun in May, 1915, when visits were made to all cooking centers then in operation, and to special or regular classrooms while sewing lessons were in progress. When possible, each visit included a short conference with teachers and principals, and occasionally the visitor made an op- portunity to chat with the children. In conference with the supervisor of household arts, a study was made of what material was on record in the superin- tendent's office. Other persons in this office and that of the director of schools furnished or checked in- formation received elsewhere. 2. This is the first separate report on household arts made by any school survey. Its purpose is to serve educational needs by studying present condi- tions and forecasting future developments. 3. The first household arts and science classes were estabUshed in the United States in eastern cities in the early eighties. The movement spread rapidly; normal schools and colleges established special classes; and in 1909 the American Home Economics Association was formed. 4. Household science courses in Cleveland date from 1884. In 1893 the first grade centers for cook- ing were established in the regular public schools. 5. There are at present 20 regular and seven special 36 cooking centers in the public schools. Cooking is taught to all girls in the seventh and eighth years. Each center cares for approximately 300 children a week. The estimated cost of initial equipment is $1,200, with $22 a year for upkeep. The household science centers are cheerful and well kept. 6. In older centers the hollow square arrangement of tables with single gas burners is used. In newer schools the small group of six children with one fam- ily-size gas range is more frequently found. Cleve- land for the most part has these kitchen laboratory centers but has placed model apartments in a few of the newer schools. 7. Several schools have special rooms for household arts, with sewing machines, lockers, display cases, and other equipment. 8. The supervisor of household arts is an educa- tional officer responsible to the superintendent of schools and appointed on his recommendation. She prepares the course of study; supervises the work of the special teachers of those subjects and the ele- mentary teachers in sewing; and selects equipment and plans arrangement of new centers. Clerical as- sistance is inadequate to handle the necessary routine clerical work of her office. As a consequence the supervisor is forced to neglect her supervisory duties for clerical work. 9. The household arts corps consists of a super- visor, 27 cooking teachers, and four sewing teachers. They are well liked by principals and children, are in- terested, conscientious, painstaking, and well trained. 37 10. In the opinion of the writer, teachers of house- hold science in Cleveland fail to appreciate the wider aspects of their work. They are interested in methods but pay little attention to selection of subject matter, reasons, or results. 11. Cleveland schools have secured well trained teachers at bargain prices. They have had on the average longer preparation for their work than have the manual training teachers, but their salaries begin at $500 per year with a maximum after 10 years of $1,000, while the manual training teachers begin at $900, with a maximum of $1,500. Twenty out of the 31 household arts teachers receive $750 a year or less. This salary is seriously inadequate. 12. The elementary school principals are uni- formly in favor of household arts teaching in the grades. In most cases they have paid Uttle attention to the educational values aimed at, or the results actually achieved. 13. A new course of study is now being used which will certainly be a decided improvement over that formerly used. Since it has not yet been tried in detail, it cannot be discussed at length. 14. There are four special teachers of household arts dividing their time among eight schools. Their courses include textile, machine and hand sewing, and fancy work. A simpler course is given by the grade teachers. 15. One-piece cooking aprons and caps which cover the hair would be more hygienic and could be made fully as attractive as those now in use. 38 16. Printed lesson leaves distributed at each lesson and kept in loose-leaf notebooks are preferable to the hand-written recipes and notes now in use. The present method is inaccurate and time consuming. 17. There are two types of housekeeping apart- ments in Cleveland schools. One represents condi- tions commonly found in the neighborhood; the other has the equipment found in the best modern apartments. The apparent antagonism between these two methods is one of appearance only. The model apartments should train girls to make the best of what they have, and at the same time show them how much more can be accomplished in less time with less effort when suitable tools are used. The model apartment should arouse girls to strive for better conditions, and is a valuable adjunct to the teaching of domestic science and arts in the schools. 39 CHAPTER II RELATION OF HOUSEHOLD ARTS TO ELEMENTARY EDUCATION The argument most commonly advanced in favor of household arts teaching in the elementary schools is that it trains girls to be good homemakers and house- keepers. The two are thought of as overlapping, intermingling, as being almost synonymous. Courses dealing with the subject matter of household arts are announced in different cities under names such as homemaking, home economics, household economy, household science, housewifery, household arts, and similar captions. In reality homemaking and house- keeping are different and distinct. Homemaking Versus Housekeeping Home! It means something different to each one; and at the same time it represents to each one, some- thing with which his most intimate and personal feelings are associated. The very word home en- genders emotion. '^ Woman, Home, Church,'' — automatically feeling is substituted for thinking when they are under discussion. This is especially true when the argument seems to lead away from safe 40 and well beaten paths. Yet all this complex ma- terial which goes to make up a home, this intricate association of four walls and the fancies which vivify them, must be subjected to critical study and analysis before the school can do its part towards intelligently anticipating the needs of homes of the future in its training of the present generation. Such analysis is never entirely satisfactory, but it affords the one means at hand for separating out the parts of the problem which are tangible and concrete from those which are intangible and abstract. Home is a place where physical needs are considered and satisfied, and at the same time a place where physical well- being forms a basis for, and goes along with the expression and fulfillment of various social and personal tastes and aspirations. Housekeeping is a science, a business, a vocation, and is subject to objective rules and standards just as is any other business. Everyone can tell if a room has been swept and dusted; everyone knows the difference between well and poorly laundered linen; and everyone is fully conscious of the fact when soup is scorched or meat overdone. Poor work and poor management in the realm of housekeeping carry their own immediate penalties with them in the shape of a general family dissatisfaction. No one pays much attention when things go well, but the whole family is up in arms if a meal is spoiled in the cook- ing. This immediate resentment may be largely accounted for on the ground that everyone knows that there are right ways and wrong ways of doing 41 household work; that the tasks are tangible and can be learned, and that the person who blunders does so because of carelessness or faulty technique. '^Carelessness and lack of skill are not passed by without comment in stenographer, salesman, soldier, surgeon, or scientist, so why should they be in a ser- vant or her mistress,'' is the undercurrent of feeling which family grumbling expresses. Housekeeping, as society is now organized, is woman's economic contribution to the family in- come; and her business share in the process of run- ning a household, just as wage earning is man's. She should have a professional attitude toward her work, but she should not be allowed to confuse her achievements as a housekeeper with her obligations as a homemaker, which are much more subtle and diffi- cult of accomplishment. In contrast with this business of housekeeping is homemaking. Homemaking is an art, an avocation, and a marginal activity. It is difficult to locate or define. One family home is made and bounded by cook stove and linen closet, back yard and Ford; while the next door neighbor finds it in books, music, friends, and out of doors. One man makes his home with places and things; the other with people and ideas. It is not a question of right and wrong, or of rules and objective standards as in housekeeping, but of human preferences in combinations unlimited. The range of materials with which housekeeping has to deal, — such as food, clothing, shelter, — is compara- tively simple as compared with the range involved 42 in homemaking. One takes into account physical necessities; the other emotional and intellectual ap- preciations and values. The first organizes things; while the second creates a feeling atmosphere accord- ing to the individual outlook upon life itself. The housekeeper is primarily concerned with quantities; the homemaker with qualities. The two functions are not identical. They are not even similar, and there is no absolute reason why a housekeeper should also be a homemaker or a homemaker a housekeeper. On the contrary there may be very good reason for separating the two functions and assigning them to persons who can perform one or the other admirably, but who cannot or prefer not to combine the two. Education for Homemaking A group of people may live together for years, they may even be united by ties of blood and association without making a home for themselves. Such a group constitutes a household or a family, but a home is something more. Although home has its foundations laid deep in propinquity and the commonplaces of daily life, on analysis its satisfying qualities seem to depend upon different factors, such as social organ- ization, use of marginal time, and their interaction one on the other. For thousands of years men have worked with tools, but not until 150 years ago did they find a sub- stitute for fingers. The Industrial Revolution insti- tuted a momentous change; it substituted a machine 43 for human fingers. Today one man and a machine can do the work hundreds of people used to do. Ma- chines have made two great contributions to the welfare of society; more goods and more free time; but this great boon of free time, to be enjoyed, must be organized for fruitful use. Society is just beginning to be on familiar terms with the strange new tendency of its members to be bored and get into mischief, that never cropped out to so alarming an extent until machinery set time free. If free time then, is not to become an evil, in- stead of a boon, some sort of fruitful activity must be devised to replace work which once kept all men busy. The remedy lies in cultivating individual personality and a discriminating sense of human values. This is a problem that today confronts progressive society, and both home and school must lend a hand in its solution. A long period of preparation is required to meet these new responsibilities. Marginal time can be transmuted into fruitful leisure only through a long- continued developing experience. To be effective this training must run through the whole curriculum, and every subject must contribute to it, since its strength lies not in a specific content, but in a habit of mind and a point of view. Formerly the activities of homemaking were in- extricably interwoven with those of housekeeping. Members of the family found their interests and op- portunities for self expression in the household work, neighborhood trades, and home crafts, all carried on 44 under the same roof. As industry became more and more specialized, fields of human interest and ac- tivity also became specialized. Instead of one long undifferentiated working day certain hours came to be set aside for vocational activity and certain others for leisure time. Society is beginning to assume the responsibility of securing for the individual an op- portunity for full self expression in his vocation; but society is far from realizing that full activity and self expression during leisure hours is of equal or perhaps greater importance. Members of the group are in- creasingly carrying on their vocational activities out- side the dwelling place. They are together only during marginal hours. The problem of homemaking is becoming, therefore, more and more a problem of the use of leisure time. Another great problem in education for home- making, — and it is closely related to the problem of how to spend marginal time, — is that of locating, understanding and controlling forces that govern the behavior of people living together in society. The outstanding fact in modern civilization is man's control over nature. The whole organization of modern society is based upon it. The secret of man's control over natural forces is the scientific method. This method enabled patient workers to formulate principles which other men, incapable of so generalizing, could use without themselves repeat- ing the initial work. In consequence steam and elec- tricity became beasts of burden for society, but so- ciety must be on its guard or they in turn will master 45 it, so potent is their influence. Man has yet to work out a similar organization for the control of social forces. In any consideration of the home as a social insti- tution, the various characteristics of its individual members must be taken into account. Since the home Hke any other such organization rests on hu- man foundations, its final outcome must be de- termined by them. If home exists not as an end in itself, but as an instrument to further human happi- ness and social well-being, and if man is an alert, active, gregarious, and approval loving creature as we are coming to believe, then, home is wherever one is good company for himself and those about him. It is folly to talk of educating a sex or even an indi- vidual member of a group as the ^^homemaker'^ for that group; for homemaking, like thinking, to be of any value must be for every person therein concerned an active, not a passive process. A well kept house with slippers warm by the fire, a tempting meal, and the evening paper are important; but they are not the essentials in a home. The person in charge may clear the ground for and shape the general structure of the home, just as in Cleveland the architect-con- tractor prepares those miles on miles of little smoked- drab houses. But in spite of his good intentions and extensive advertising, he has built not homes, but dweUings. In a very real sense every man, every woman, and every child makes his or her home. This homemaking process is profoundly affected by a 46 broad range of human relationships and contacts with the outside world. In consequence the indi- viduality of a person^s home is in direct proportion to the richness and variety of these outside influences. This does not imply that homes should lack heads. It means that heads should direct, not dominate group activities, and further that each member of the household should be given the opportunity according to his maturity, to participate or not, as he desires, in whatever leisure time activity concerns the group. Homes organized to this end offer society and the indi\ddual a liberal return for marginal tim^e spent in its uses. Education for homemaking is needed by boys and girls alike, but homemaking cannot be taught as a school subject. The kind of a home one makes does not depend upon a particular set of facts about food, clothing, and shelter, organized into a course by the school. The satisfying qualities of home depend rather upon the ability of members of the household to cooperate in an enjoyable and harmonious use of their free time. The school can do much to further the development of such ability in every individual, but the school cannot accomplish it alone. This eliminates education for homemaking as a separate school problem and a distinct school subject; it should not be confused with the strictly technical courses called ^^ homemaking^' now offered by many departments of household arts. 47 Function of Household Arts and Its Two Aspects A gradually increasing control of natural resources up to the time of the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century, and an enormously accelerated rate of control since, is beginning to convince society that there is enough food, clothing, and shelter avail- able for every family, and every individual, to have more of them than a bare subsistence measure. In other words society is in process of formulating a progressive standard of living below which it is un- willing that any family or any individual shall fall. Household arts has a twofold contribution to make to the formulation and maintenance of such a pro- gressive social standard for right living. First it can give skill in doing any or all of the varied tasks con- nected with housekeeping. This division of house- hold arts can be handled with a fair degree of exact- ness. According to their needs housekeepers can secure training in the various skills required in their occupations, but this training is largely technical and is planned for those who are face to face with the problems of directing a household. The school should provide opportunity for such training for all who need it, but it is not the best kind of education for elementary school children. Such training is vocational in character and educa- tors are striving to put the emphasis on the prevoca- tional. At this period the main function of the school is not to give children a specific and immediate technical equipment for particular branches of in- 48 dustry, whether garment making without, or cooking within the house. Its purpose here is a more funda- mental and preparatory one; it is to stimulate chil- dren to become useful and valuable citizens of a democratic society through making them successful members of the societies of their childhood, — home and school. It happens, however, that particular groups of children must be wage earners or house- keepers as soon as they leave school, or even while they are attending. The needs of these groups should be considered, but those of the larger group should not be sacrificed to them. In the case of girls, it is the minority, not the majority, who have immediate and urgent use for technical training in housekeeping. Technical courses in housekeeping belong in the high school or in extension courses for adults. On the other hand in the elementary school emphasis should be put on phases of household arts which affect both boys and girls and which are of immediate, as well as of future, value to them personally, rather than as individuals responsible for the welfare of others. The second division of household arts deals with standards for right living and it is akin to health work in the schools. At this point there should be close cooperation with the health authorities. Sane habits of eating, sleeping, and living are just as vital to boys as to girls, and should be impressed on both by whatever department has this training in charge. All children should be taught what foods are good for them to eat and why, but during childhood only a very few need to know how to cook those same foods. 4 49 They all ought to have standards for judging quali- ties of various textiles, how warm they are, whether or not they absorb or shed water, what kinds are best suited for different purposes, and when a cheap grade will do just as well as an expensive one. In the elementary school increased emphasis should be put upon spending, rather than on producing and earning. All children should be taught first and fore- most to use and enjoy goods wisely, whether or not their later work will lie chiefly in the field of earning or spending, producing or consuming. They should be taught something of values, and educated to ques- tion the worth, actual and social, of things they de- sire. Household arts education here affords an op- portunity to create the beginning of an intelligent public opinion regarding child labor, the sweated trades, and other social and economic problems of an industrial democracy. Both aspects of household arts are important but the problem of the school is one of comparative values. One aspect of household arts aims at skill in doing; the other at judgment in using. The lat- ter is the more fundamental, and is universal in its application. The elementary school should center its activities on giving children standards for right living. Selection of Subject Matter The previous discussion would confine the main line of attack for household arts in the elementary school to problems directly involved in giving children 50 standards for right living. This necessitates search- ing study. Problems must be isolated and separately analyzed in a conscious effort to find out those which must be handled, wholly or in part, by the school because children do not get the needed control over them elsewhere, and those which may be omitted be- cause children have sufficiently close contact with them outside of school. Food, clothing, and shelter are fundamental human needs. When children are left to their own desires they build houses of packing boxes, in snow banks, or with two chairs and a shawl. Boys and girls play together at keeping house. Teachers should foster this interest which children bring to school and with it as a basis lead children on to knowledge and under- standing of why housing problems arise when large numbers of people live together in cities. This in- terest in human habitations runs through the school from kindergarten to college and may be made to link up with almost every other branch in the cur- riculum. The second human need is clothing. Children take clothes for granted, and while New York^s East Side children know all too well that clothes are made from cloth, they have to be persuaded that cloth is made from wool which grows on sheep. This is natural enough. Children see clothing being made or mended all about them, but they do not see shear- ing, carding, spinning, or weaving, for the making of textiles in becoming a factory industry has ceased to be an affair of household moment. In conse- 51 quence, children's urgent needs in this department fall in the class of standards for using, not skill for producing. They should know how cloth is made, with the emphasis not on processes, but upon a ''square deal'' for and by the people who carry out those processes. Interest in this department of tex- tiles as in the department of housing, can be made important throughout the child's school life, by proper handling of other subjects. Sewing is generally begun in the kindergarten and from there on has a place in the hand work given there and in the lower grades. The general function of such work during the first school years is to intro- duce children to processes which go on all about them, which ordinarily they do not or cannot learn at home. The reason for putting sewing as such in the elementary school is two-fold; to enable children to handle a needle with sufficient skill to do emer- gency work, like sewing on coat buttons, taking a tuck, or the like, and the subject matter should be chosen with this end in view, and to meet the needs of boys and girls alike. It may have a further value for girls in terms of recreation. This is particularly true in the case of knitting, crocheting, tatting, and embroidery. Sewing has, however, no value beyond the use which it serves. People learn to sew not be- cause sewing is a better form of activity than roller skating, but because at sometime or other everyone finds it a convenience to be on familiar terms with a needle. It is entirely conceivable that conditions will change within a short time and make sewing a refine- 52 ment that the elementary school, pushed for time as it is, camiot afford. The necessity for making one's own clothes, or even of mending them is rapidly becoming a matter not alone of individual preference but of economy. In the big cities there is an ever increasing group of women who rather enjoy sewing, but who cannot often afford to do it, for their time is too valuable to be spent in this way unless time so spent is counted against recreation and taken from their free margin. In the opinion of the writer a skillfully planned course in emergency and machine sewing, — one 90 minute lesson per week, throughout the fifth or sixth year, — should give girls all the sewing they actually need, and the necessities of the boys are even more easily met. Such a course could be given by the regular teachers, but from an administrative, as well as teaching standpoint, it is better to have special teachers. The third and most important human need of all is that of foods. No effort is required to interest children in that department; such an interest is one of their most fundamental instincts. This depart- ment used to be conducted entirely by the housewife, and children acquired needful knowledge, skill, and standards of judgment through enforced participa- tion in e very-day household activities. Today all this is changed. The divisions of brews and simples have gone to brewer and pharmacist and competition between them is too keen for the housewife ever to regain supremacy in this field. Gold Dust Twins and 53 Little Fairy have inherited a goodly share of another department, — household cleansers. Colgate and Men- nen are competing with Paris for toilet preparations. Armour does our butchering, and curing; Campbell makes our soups; and Heinz more kinds of preserves than the most enterprising colonial danie ever at- tempted. Mr. Hire and Mr. Welsh have taken soft drinks; Mr. Ward is after batters and doughs, — and the National Biscuit Company never ceases reiterat- ing that Uneeda Biscuit. The housewife retains a partial hold upon meats, vegetables, salads, and des- serts, — but even on these inroads are being made by far-sighted manufacturers via the delicatessen store. This momentous change is largely due to division of labor, specialization, and cooperation of modern industry. Lunch time in kindergarten affords the school its first opportunity for instruction in the use of food. If the teacher so wills it, milk and crackers soon dis- place the time-honored pretzel or bun, while an or- ganized lunch service can do good work along this line with children in the grades. In the course of their regular work children may learn a good deal about different foods, where and how they are grown, under what conditions they are marketed, and how it comes about that dates grown in Arabia can be sold in Cleveland for 10 cents a pound. Throughout the elementary school emphasis be- longs on use of foods rather than on the preparation. Cooking classes make a valuable contribution here, if the course is planned with this end in view. Chil- 54 dren as children have more use for knowledge of what constitutes a good loaf of bread than they have for knowledge of how to make bread. There is noth- ing inherently ethical connected with cooking as such. It may be valuable as a recreational activity; it may be but a means to an end, a service process, just as delivering groceries or typewriting letters are service processes. However, cooking is still an im- portant activity in the detail of daily life, and some acquaintance with the kitchen is a convenience even for children. For emergency purposes all children ought to know something of cooking as of sewing. They should be able to lay a fire and handle a stove, and prepare a simple meal which would involve for eggs, boiling; for meats, boiUng and broiling; and for vegetables and cereals, boiling and roasting (potatoes). Girls enjoy such work, and boys will, too, if its practical out-of-door uses are enlarged upon. It is entirely conceivable, however, that the time will come when such a working knowledge of kitchen processes will cease to be a convenience and as it becomes a trade subject lose its right to a place in the curriculum of the elementary school. A Housekeeping Course in the Junior High School Elementary education is one kind of insurance that each generation takes out in behalf of the next. Its purpose is to teach all children those things that are 55 adult necessities and that they cannot learn by mere looking on or taking part. That is why society sup- ports schools at public expense, makes attendance universal and obligatory, and decrees that they shall teach such subjects as reading, writing, arithmetic, and the other similar studies of every elementary curriculum. The present discussion has indicated that house- hold arts, as commonly taught, only partly justifies its presence in the course of study when judged on this practical basis. If the common argument claim- ing that household arts trains girls to be successful homemakers were a valid one, this would eminently justify the inclusion of the study in the elementary course, for homemaking is an adult human necessity and it is not learned by mere contact and participa- tion. Unfortunately, as we have seen, it cannot be taught in a formal school course. Nevertheless there exist in such a city as Cleve- land certain potent reasons why it seems wise to include as a part of the education of all girls a brief course in practical housekeeping. In this city girls attend school up to the age of 16. Among every 10 girls seven drop out of school in the seventh, eighth, or ninth grades. They are about 16 years of age. Under the Ohio law it is difficult for them to find employment in industrial establishments until they are 18 years of age. As a result most of them spend a year or two at home before going to work. At about the age of 18 a majority of them do go to work. Most of them enter some form of industrial employ- 56 ment and are wage-earners for three, four, or perhaps five years. Then the majority of them marry and set up housekeeping for themselves. Most of these girls are of foreign extraction and a large majority of them come from non-Enghsh speaking homes. The men they marry come from the same sorts of famihes, are engaged mainly in industrial work, and have an- nual incomes in the neighborhood of $1 ,000. Detailed data concerning all these points are to be found in the volumes of this Survey devoted to the problems of industrial education. As one phase of the social insurance that each gen- eration takes out in behalf of the nation it seems the part of wisdom for the pubUc schools to organize a one-year housekeeping course for all girls designed especially to meet the needs of this majority that has been described. Such a course might well be a part of the work of the second year of the junior high school which corresponds to the present eighth grade. It should be practical and intensive in nature and endeavor to give the girls training in meeting the universal everyday problems of housekeeping. It should especially stress labor-saving methods and devices. Most of the girls would ahnost immediately put what they learned into practical application for the course would come at a time when the majority of them are able to spend a year or two at home. It would insure for all of them a degree of acquaintance with good housekeeping methods that should con- tribute toward the establishment of desirable stand- 57 ards in their own homes when they undertake their management a few years later. If these girls can be given a fundamental knowl- edge of those household processes with which most of them will be concerned, they will secure a certain amount of technical skill and, what is of far greater value, learn to know good work when they see it. They will become better citizens and potentially bet- ter housewives. They may even acquire that most insidious of all tastes, — a liking for the exhilaration which goes with good work. Society and the family gain thereby, but the chief gain is to the girl herself who learns to find happiness in work. Summary 1. Housekeeping and homemaking are not synony- mous. They are separate in life and distinct in education. 2. Housekeeping is a science, a business, and a vocation, and is subject to rules and standards just as objective as those of any other business. Home- making is an art, an avocation, and a marginal ac- tivity. It is not a matter of rules, but of human preferences in combinations unlimited. 3. Housekeeping is woman's economic contribu- tion to the family income. Home depends upon such factors as social organization and use of marginal time. 4. The invention of machinery has made two great contributions to mankind, — more goods and free 58 time. This free time to be enjoyed must be organ- ized for fruitful use. 5. If free time is not to become an evil, fruitful activity must be devised to replace work which once kept all men busy. 6. To function effectively in one's leisure time one must be educated for leisure. Provision of such education is one of the most important tasks of the public school. 7. Homemaking must be an active process for every person therein concerned. The school can in large measure equip boys and girls to be home- makers; but this highly socialized education should not be confused with strictly technical vocational courses now offered by departments of household arts. 8. CiviUzation may be measured by man's in- creasing control over nature. Society is now engaged in formulating a minimum standard of living. House- hold arts has a two-fold contribution to make. 9. First it can give skill in doing household work. Such training is vocational in character. It is not the best kind of education for elementary school children. 10. The second division of household arts enables people to form correct judgments regarding the use of food, clothing, and shelter as they relate to their daily life. This is the more important aspect of household arts for the elementary school. 11. There is much available subject matter for household arts teaching in the elementary school. 59 The problem of the school is to select for its purposes that which children need but do not get elsewhere. 12. The Survey recommends the establishment in the junior high schools of a one-year course for all girls. 60 CHAPTER III INFANT HYGIENE '^Have you heard about the baby hygiene competi- tion? The nurses are giving a prize to the school girl who writes the best 500 word essay on the subject/' Such, last May, was often the beginning of conversa- tions between teachers of food and sanitation and members of the Survey Staff. Questioning brought out the fact that a course in infant hygiene was being given for the second time in the city schools. The machinery was working smoothly and the course arousing much enthusiasm. To understand and ap- preciate this situation a brief review is necessary. The movement for the conservation of the child is nation-wide and has its roots back in the third quarter of the 19th century when kindergartners, mothers' circles, and teachers everywhere, began to study the child as an individual whose personality should be respected. At the close of the century scientific associations commenced to call attention to the physical needs of children. Ten years ago saw the inauguration of real medical inspection in the public schools. Today cities all over the country are taking care of the health of their school children. While these changes were taking place within the 61 school, momentous ones were going on outside. Under Roosevelt, conservation of national resources became a live political issue. Study of forests, coal, water power, land, cows, chickens, and pigs gradually brought the pubhc at large to a realization that citi- zens too have an economic value, and that of all the nation's assets children are the most valuable. Na- tional and state child labor committees empha- sized this same idea. In 1912, after much agitation, the Federal Children's Bureau was started. This Bureau was conceived with the deliberate purpose of conserving the Ufe and health of all children. For its slogan the Bureau chose ^^Baby Saving,'' for baby saving is the root of the whole situation and the best place of attack. The Cleveland Child Welfare Exhibit of 1913 laid particular emphasis on baby saving. Widespread enthusiasm was aroused throughout the city and various organizations especially interested in this problem, such as the Visiting Nurses' Association and the Babies' Dispensary, began a campaign with the direct result that in April, 1914, infant hygiene was introduced into the eighth grade of the elementary schools. The writer is keenly impressed with the necessity and far-reaching importance of child conservation, but she does raise certain questions with reference to the part which may properly be played by the ele- mentary school in actually carrying forward such a policy of public moment. Briefly stated, these ques- tions are as follows: First, does elementary school 62 teaching further this work to any such extent as its advocates believe? Second, does it dupUcate or over- lap work which may well be carried by existing organ- izations such as milk stations and babies^ dispen- saries? Third, does it offer in immediate value to the girl, or in a future value to her child, returns equal to or greater than those of the work which it dis- places? Arguments for Teaching Infant Hygiene in Elementary Schools The arguments which put infant hygiene into the schools are these : Thousands of babies die yearly for lack of proper care; mothers are too ignorant, too stupid, too careless, or too busy to learn how to care for the babies and frequently this care falls on an older sister. This older sister is at school and the school can teach her how to care for the baby. Such teaching will reach the baby, the home, the mother, and perhaps the neighbors. Moreover, it prepares the girl to care intelligently for her own baby later on. This last argument won the day. What the Elementary School is Doing Twenty-five hundred eighth grade girls are now hav- ing a regular course in infant hygiene. This course takes the place of eight weeks' carefully planned work in food and sanitation, four lessons being taught by the regular instructors in these subjects and four by the school nurses. The course is as follows: 63 1. Causes and prevention of the present high death rate and how to keep the baby well (taught by nurse). 2. Milk: its composition, taught by making butter, cottage cheese, junket, custard (taught by teacher). 3. Milk: modified, pasteurized, sterilized. Care of bottles (taught by teacher). 4. Feeding: maternal, artificial. Importance of pure milk. Danger of so-called ^^ Baby Foods '^ (taught by nurse). 5. Clothing: discussion of the outfit and cutting of patterns (taught by teacher). 6. First home treatment in the beginning of in- testinal disturbances (taught by nurse). 7. Bed, bedding, sleep, airing, and handling (taught by teacher). 8. Bath: the essentials of the bath and how much good it does the baby (taught by nurse). There is a general belief that this teaching costs very little. The nurses and household arts teachers give it. The rooms are at hand and in several of the centers bedrooms adjoin the kitchens. The additional equip- ment required, such as one baby outfit with blanket, bassinet, tub, and other necessary articles, cost but a few dollars. However, this course is not so inexpensive as at first it seems. School nurses give half of the course which means that while they are teaching the special teachers are idle, in the sense that this school time is not being used for teaching purposes. So the school pays for teaching time amounting to 536 periods of from 45 to 60 minutes each, for which it gets no 64 specific return. This loss is equivalent to more than half of the teaching time of one household arts teacher for one year. She teaches on an average 15 periods of 90 minutes each for 36 weeks, or 530 of these longer periods for the year. When the nurses give infant hygiene, a like amount of time is being taken from their regular work. Moreover, while the girls are having cooking and boys manual training, their regular grade teacher is not teaching and a portion of this idle time should properly be charged up against infant hygiene. In addition to the actual money cost there is another factor to be considered: the work of the de- partment of medical inspection. The nurses are in- dispensable to this department and they are excep- tionally able and intelligent in carrying forward its policy and plans. Cleveland needs more nurses. Those she has are already overburdened with work and their own department cannot spare them from the regular routine for 134 periods per week for four weeks without being greatly handicapped thereby. It is open to serious question whether infant hygiene, which meets a real need on the part of a few children, approaches in importance the regular work of medi- cal inspection which renders valuable service to all. Infant Hygiene and the Wokk It Displaces In the seventh and eighth grades 90 minutes per week are allotted to foods and sanitation. The ground to be covered is extensive and most careful 5 65 manipulation is necessary to get everything into 36 lessons. If the planning is well done the girls get from this course much knowledge of real and im- mediate value to them as individuals taking an active part in the Ufe of home, of school, or of in- dustry. Infant hygiene displaces eight of these lessons or 22 per cent of a yearns work in foods and sanitation. To be sure, part of the theory given in the infant hygiene course is included in the other, but the major portion of this work is highly technical, and involves the actual details of the care of a baby in all the minutiae of its daily life. Moreover, that part of the course which deals with hygiene in its broader aspects is included in any well arranged work in foods and sanitation whether or not infant hygiene is given. Adult Responsibility and the Adolescent Girl Training in all the details connected with the care of a Uttle baby may be necessary because home con- ditions are bad, just as training for wage-earning at the age of 14 may be necessary for Uke cause, but this situation should be honestly faced, with thought- ful consideration as to whether such training will eventually do away with the need for it or instead help fasten a bad economic condition upon society. It should never be forgotten that the carrying of full adult responsibility, whether it be a wage-earn- ing or a home responsibility, imposes an unfair bur- den on girls at a time when they are physically unfit 66 to carry it. In this connection a comment of one of the elementary school principals, who is located in an Italian neighborhood, furnishes a suggestion. The open air class and its population were under dis- cussion. The principal noticed that there were al- ways more girls than boys in the class. This condition she thought might be due in part to the fact that daily life for even the youngest girls was one of house- hold drudgery, but for boys it was a carefree, ball- playing existence. The care required by young children is of a highly specialized and technical kind. It is too difficult for young girls really to master, and the penalty for non- mastery has grave consequences for them, for the babies, and for society at large. Grammar school girls are adolescent girls, and they should no more be expected to carry full adult responsibility than they should be to do full adult work. Too great emphasis can hardly be made at this point. Adolescent chil- dren are in a peculiarly critical period of develop- ment, as we are beginning to realize. They are unde- veloped; they are immature; and they cannot be forced physically or mentally without serious conse- quences to themselves and society. At this age, girls especially are apt to be moody, introspective, and dreamy. What they most need is an objective, a tangible world, with emphasis on the kind of a place it is, how it is organized, and how they must be equipped to make headway in it. The majority will have to cope with the economic and social aspects of an industrial world for from five to 15 years before 67 they have homes of their own; some few will spend a life time in industry. Time When Specialized Training Should be Given Among the great numbers of foreign children in the Cleveland schools are many upon whom the burden of child care falls directly, but, before new subject matter for general consumption is introduced into the curriculum, the general needs of all children should be carefully considered. For the good of the babies and for the good of the girls infant hygiene should be taught only to those girls upon whom such burdens actually fall or are likely to fall within a very short period. The best time to teach people is when they have an actual need for the information and the technique of the subject. The majority of girls are not required to make all their own clothing or direct the affairs of a household. Their part is participa- tion in the activities around them. Training in spe- cific technique in any one of these activities, or in stenography or bookkeeping or typesetting, should be given when such need is imminent, whether that need be for the bathing of babies or the filing of bills, be- cause a technique is soon forgotten if not used and it is foolish to learn one for which there is little if any immediate need. Hygiene for Boys and Girls Alike Careful instruction and training in personal hygiene belongs in the elementary school curriculum, and it 68 should be given to boys and girls alike. Knowledge regarding community health should be flung so broadcast that the school child and the student, the stenographer and the scholar, the salesman and the soldier, in short, all society may recognize unhygienic conditions, and feel the obligation and urgency of doing something to remedy them. Per- sonal hygiene made so to function in the lives of children would be an enormous asset to them and to society. During their progress through the elementary school all children should learn something about the care of normal people, of exceptional people, old people, sick people, and babies, and that babies, especially, require delicate handling. They ought to know where such instruction can be secured and they ought to be impressed with the importance of having expert advice and assistance when responsi- ble for little babies. Such teaching might properly be planned by the school health authorities in coope- ration with the department of household arts, and it would make use of any and all material which might serve to develop in children habits of personal hy- giene. Boys and girls trained in the habit of respect- ing and caring for their own persons would not be likely, later on, to neglect their children. Effectiveness of Baby Saving Institutions Milk stations and babies^ dispensaries are an out- growth of the past two decades, and, in general, con- 69 structive plans for baby saving on the part of hos- pitals and dispensaries are a still more recent de- velopment. The public is just awakening to the possibilities of an effective educational campaign on the part of these institutions whose work brings them in direct personal contact with mothers or other adults re- sponsible for the care of babies. Frequently this first contact is occasioned by the baby^s illness, sometimes a serious one (an enforced system of birth registra- tion followed up by a visiting nurse might remedy this), but the contact between hospital and home is sometimes strengthened by the very urgency of the mother^s need for instruction and guidance offered at a critical moment. These institutions are doing excellent work. Each year they win a firmer foothold in the com- munity and thereby open up further possibilities for usefulness. They are undertaking a new and difficult kind of educational program, and while their tech- nique is not yet perfect, it is already yielding aston- ishing results. Community responsibility for pro- viding the right kind of physical care for young chil- dren is one which these institutions may properly be expected to carry. They have recognized this op- portunity and are attempting to take advantage of it. Before assuming to carry this part of the burden of child care, the public school should make an earn- est effort to find out whether its services are espe- cially needed in this particular field. Such an inquiry might very well show that, given adequate support, 70 organizations already at work are better able to cope with the situation. Summary 1. This report is based on classroom observ'ations ; on discussions "vsith teachers and nurses; on like conferences with the supen^or of household arts, the director of medical inspection, and the head school nurse, as well as with other persons in Cleve- land and elsewhere, whose interests and work lie in the field of pubUc health education. 2. Infant hygiene is one of the important phases of the conservation movement. It has its roots in the early part of the 19th centur>% but was brought into prominence in 1912, by the creation at Washington of a Federal Children's Bureau. 3. The 1913 Cleveland Child Welfare Exhibit focussed attention on baby sa\'ing. This resulted in a campaign by the Babies' Dispensary-, the Visiting Nurses' Association, and hke organizations. One year lat^r infant hygiene was introduced into the pubUc schools. In April, 1915, there were 2,500 eighth grade girls recei\ing a regular eight lesson course in infant hygiene, 4. The Surv'ey asks the questions: Does ele- mentary school teaching further this work to the extent that its advocates beUeve? Does it duphcate work which may better be carried by existing organ- izations, such as milk stations and babies' dispen- saries? Does it offer either in an immediate value to the girl, or in a future value to her child, returns 71 equal to or greater than those of the work which it displaces? 5. The arguments which put infant hygiene in the schools are briefly: 1. Thousands of babies die every year because mothers do not take proper care of them. 2. Girls at school can be taught how to care for babies. 3. It costs little to give such a course. 4. Teaching can be given by household arts teachers and school nurses who are already on the payroll. 6. The costs of infant hygiene are two-fold: The money cost of teaching time and the loss of other work in foods and sanitation and medical inspection displaced by infant hygiene. 7. Community responsibility for the right kind of physical care for young children has been recognized and assumed by baby saving institutions, such as milk stations and babies' dispensaries. Before as- suming this part of the burden of child care, the pub- lic school should make an effort to find if its services will be of especial value. 8. The care required by young children is of a highly technical kind. It is too difficult for girls to master, and the penalty for non-mastery has grave consequences. Grammar school girls should no more be expected to carry full adult responsibility than they are to do full adult work. Therefore infant hy- giene should be taught only to those girls who must actually be responsible for the care of little babies. 72 9. In advocating that the teaching of infant hy- giene be limited to those girls who will make immedi- ate use of such training the writer wishes to urge the further extension of hygiene education, which should be taught to boys and girls alike. 10. Such a course involves thoughtful planning and skilful teaching. If nurses are to help teach it they should be trained in effective methods of class- room instruction. Household arts teachers, on the other hand, need not only skill in teaching method, but a broad and suggestive background in public health matters. Hygiene, whether taught to all children or only a few, should be as well taught as any other subject in the curriculum. 11. From time to time society is forced to make unfair demands upon individuals or classes in behalf of the group as a whole. Infant hygiene teaching in the elementary school is based on one of those de- mands. It is a kind of class education given to girls who are obliged to carry responsibihty beyond their age, because mothers are too ignorant, too stupid, or too heavily burdened to care for their babies, or because mothers are dead and society shortsightedly sacrifices one child in the interests of another. Such a program is justifiable only as an emergency meas- ure, but it cannot be justified as a universal pro- gram of education. 73 CHAPTER IV HOUSEHOLD ARTS IN CLEVELAND HIGH SCHOOLS Cleveland is deservedly proud of its two technical high schools. In May, 1915, they housed nearly 3,000 students or one-third of the city's public high school population. The remaining high school stu- dents were distributed among the six academic and two commercial schools. However, as most of the students of the technical high schools are boys, the girls constituted far less than one-third of the high school girls of the city. Their number was 880. A four year course in household arts was first organized at East Technical High School which was opened in 1908. Four years later, in 1912, West Technical High School was opened, and it Ukewise gave four years to this subject. In September, 1915, household arts was further extended by the intro- duction of a two year course into the academic high schools. The course is new and untried, and is being subjected to constant study and criticism by the school officers. In consequence this part of the report is confined to general rather than detailed discussion. Likewise in September, 1915, junior high schools were opened at Detroit and Empire schools. As yet 74 only the seventh and eighth grades have been in- cluded in the junior high schools. All the girls must take either one double period of household arts or elect a fuller five period course. As yet the house- hold arts work is comparable to that of the elemen- tary schools, but will expand with the addition of the third year and no doubt follow the high school Unes. Night school work in domestic science was started at both technical schools when they were opened. This now consists of two terms a year of 10 weeks each. The usual night school fee of $5 is charged with a rebate of $3.50 if the pupil attends at least 15 lessons. In one of the classes of 36 pupils, the following occupations were represented: 9 stenographers 5 teachers 4 clerks 4 dressmakers 4 housewives 3 bookkeepers 3 tailoresses 2 cigar makers 1 milliner 1 waitress Most of these pupils were young women who were making definite preparation for taking up household duties in their own homes. Space, Physical Equipment, and Costs There is a generous space allotment to household arts in the technical schools and the furnishings are 76 modern and in excellent repair. Classrooms are light and airy, and are provided with liberal closet and storage space. The rooms as a whole are not over- crowded with equipment and the work is so planned that classes average from 15 to 30 girls, depending upon the subject and how advanced the course is. Household arts is one of the original departments in the technical schools and costs for equipping class- rooms given over to it are included in the cost of buildings as a whole. In 1915 the Board of Education appropriated $18,000 for equipment (exclusive of necessary struc- tural changes) for household science rooms in the six academic schools. This equipment is very much the same as that at the technical schools and probably does not differ much in cost. Maintenance for these rooms is also charged against the general mainte- nance fund set aside for each building. Course of Study in Technical Schools Most of the girls who go to technical schools take their major course in either foods and sanitation, or clothing and textiles; a few take it in applied design. In addition to regular students there is a scattering of special students throughout the various depart- ments. The schools, in giving a four year course in household arts, have agreed in their threefold pur- pose 'Ho teach all subjects pertaining to the care and duties of the home that girls may be prepared for practical homekeeping; to teach all theory relating to the above subject as applied science, that girls 76 may acquire mental development as well as prac- tical skill; to teach institutional cookery, kitchen management, sewing, and millinery as trade sub- jects, that students may use them for wage-earning occupations/' They differ in details which are, how- ever, unimportant to this discussion. Time allotted to various subjects is indicated, in the main, by the schedule given below which is the one in operation at East Technical High School. COURSE OF STUDY FOR GIRLS First Year Periods per week, 45 minutes Subject each English 5 Mathematics 5 Botany and physiology 5 Cooking 6 Sewing 4 Applied arts 6 Physical training 4 or 3 Study 10 or 11 Second Year English 5 Mathematics 5 Chemistry 6 Cooking 4 Sewing 6 Applied arts 4 Physical training 4 or 3 Study 11 or 12 Third Year Normal and college preparatory course English 5 German 5 Medieval and modern history 5 Domestic science 4 Domestic art 6 Costume design 4 77 Non-college course Period, per weeks 45 minutes Subject each English 5 Medieval and modern history 5 Physics 5 Domestic science 4 Domestic art 6 Costume design 4 Trade course English 5 Medieval and modern history 5 Special technical 25 Fourth Year Normal and college preparatory course History and civics 5 German 5 Physics 5 Domestic science 4 Domestic art 6 Costume design 4 Normal music Non-college course History and civics 5 Science 5 Elective academic 5 Domestic science 4 Domestic art 6 Costume design 4 Trade course History and civics 5 Physics 5 Special technical 25 General topics considered at academic and tech- nical schools are alike, but the latter go into greater detail and make a conscious effort to correlate each year's work with academic subjects as shown by the following program: 78 FIRST YEAR WORK GIVEN IN OTHER SUBJECTS PERTAINING TO FOODS AND SANITATION Machine sewing — Hemming of dish cloths and towels; making of holders, aprons, and cases for silver. Applied art — Construction of envelope for clippings; construction and decoration of a notebook cover as a telephone pad; design for iron holder; design for a bag; design for towel decorations and house- hold linens; designing and selecting colors of mo- tives that may be applied to household. Botany — Cell structure; storage of food materials in seeds and underground stems; food materials in leaves and stalks; growth of molds and yeast plants. Physiology — Digestion of each food stuff; uses of foods in the body; personal hygiene. English — Subjects pertaining to domestic science used as themes. Spelling and pronunciation of culinary terms Arithmetic — Problems involving cost of foods; rela- tion of nutritive value to cost of food; relation of nutritive value to method of preparation; com- parison of one method of cookery with another as to economy of time and fuel; division of quantities used in the ordinary recipe that the student may appreciate the relation of the individual to the practical recipes. Data for these problems are obtained from ob- servations made in the kitchen laboratory. While skill is being acquired in preparing a food material in the school kitchen, valuable information con- cerning the same food is received from proposi- tions and solutions of mathematical problems. 79 In order to make this plan work, boys and girls are separated in classrooms as in shops and laboratories, with the result that while these schools are nominally co-educational, actually they house, under the one roof, separate boys' and girls' schools. Teaching follows the so-called laboratory method; that is, girls are required to keep careful notebooks in which they record their work as if it were a labor- atory experiment in chemistry. In addition they may copy recipes not in the textbooks and whatever miscellaneous notes they desire. Periodically these notebooks are collected and marked. Some few are excellently kept, but teachers admit that getting girls to keep their notes in order and up to date is one of the most wearing tasks they have. Throughout the entire course in foods and sanita- tion emphasis is put on practical aspects of the sub- ject. During the first two years students work in the laboratory kitchens, but in the third they begin to handle problems in connection with the house- keeping apartments fitted up in the schools. The girls do excellent work and seem thoroughly to enjoy whatever activities go on there. During the fourth year previous work is reviewed and enlarged upon, and the course as a whole ''considers organizing, dividing, and systematizing work of the household and various economic problems of the home.'' Senior students in West Technical High School, and junior and senior students at East Technical High School who wish to may drop the regular course and spe- cialize either in foods and sanitation or in clothing 80 and textiles. At East Technical the course is on trade cookery; at West Technical on lunchroom management. The Cleveland technical high schools have as their immediate ends to prepare youths of both sexes for a definite vocation and for efficient industrial citi- zenship. The study seems to indicate that these schools do not give girls the kind of education that fits them for jobs that are open to them when they leave school. At the end of their course boys are in a different position, for their four years^ time invest- ment represents a capital which almost immediately may be made to bring in on Saturday nights, about $6 regular income. For obvious reasons, such as going to college or undertaking technical work, not all boys seek positions immediately after gradu- ation, but it is probable that in case of necessity all could be self-supporting within a short time after leaving school. With girls apparantly a different condition exists. They do not respond as well, nor in such numbers as boys to the school's efforts to keep in touch with them after they leave, but what information is obtained, pieced out with what prin- cipals and teachers know about individuals and groups, throws a little light on the situation. Many girls plan to become teachers and go on to normal school or college; about an equal number take up some phase of secretarial or clerical work for which they obtain specific training after they leave school; a few go into commercial or business houses, such as millinery or dressmaking estabUshments, or 6 81 food departments of restaurants, or clothing depart- ments of stores, where their special equipment in household arts stands them in good stead and serves as a basis for promotion. A few more go into nursing or public health work of one kind or another and they, too, find that their course gives them an excel- lent background preparation for what they want to do, but, if the writer has correctly interpreted this situation on which meager statistical material is available, fully half of them stay at home. Many Cleveland parents whose children go to the city high schools do not seem to expect or want their daughters to enter wage-earning occupations away from home. Principals are cognizant of this attitude on the part of parents, which they say becomes especially notice- able when courses for vocational work or trade train- ing in any of its many forms are frankly announced as such. Boys demand such courses, girls and their parents have to be coaxed before girls will enter them, for many short-sighted parents still say with pride, '^My girl will never need to work, I can support her until she gets married.'' West Technical Lunchroom Used for Vocational Work At West Technical High School a group of about 15 senior girls is specializing in lunchroom manage- ment, with a schedule providing 25 periods per week for lunchroom and 15 for academic work. Their daily program is planned in advance so that when 82 they report each girl knows exactly what she has to do and whether she is to work alone or with others. The girls, under the direction of the concession- naire and one of the household arts teachers, do a large part of the cooking, including bread and pastry, take charge of storerooms and refrigerators, receive and issue suppUes, oversee the arrangement of lunch- room and counters, and take charge there during the noon hour. In addition to the girls, two women on full time are regularly employed to prepare vegeta- bles, keep the kitchen in order, and do other odd jobs while several of the boys wash the dishes, wait at counter, and act as cashiers. Throughout the year the main emphasis is on cookery, and girls gain skill and reUabiUty in food preparation; but since they have no direct part in buying supplies, planning menus, arranging the work- ing program, nor handling accounts, they do not acquire a sense of responsibihty for the conduct of the work as a whole. They do whatever specific tasks are assigned and do them well, although in a leisurely manner; for nowhere are they impressed with the fact that their time is worth money, and that in any commercial lunchroom they would be expected to turn out not only as good a product as is required of them at school, but also a much greater output. Practical suggestions for developing and strength- ening this course might be obtained from a study of high school lunchrooms in Los Angeles, in Gary, or in other cities where students are intimately con- nected with the conduct of their school lunch service. 83 In Los Angeles the lunchrooms are controlled by the student body and they employ whatever assistants are necessary. They appoint a committee with full authority to direct the service for one month, to buy necessary supplies, to receive and disburse funds, and to do the accounting. These monthly committees vie with one another in an effort to give maximum satisfaction at minimum cost, and since ^^ getting in a hole'' is an intolerable disgrace, finances are kept in healthy condition. Gary has a different plan. There lunchrooms are under the direction of the household arts depart- ments of the schools and are used by them for labor- atory purposes. Girls have an active and responsible share in buying supplies and in planning, preparing, and serving meals. Outside help is employed to pre- pare vegetables, wash dishes, and clean kitchens and storerooms. Keeping the lunchroom accounts is one of the practical bookkeeping problems which is han- dled by the students themselves. Los Angeles and Gary differ from each other and Cleveland, but, to a noteworthy degree, they succeed in doing something that Cleveland does not do. They put upon students responsibility for lunch service as a whole, while Cleveland, with her present course, only trains girls to be good cooks. A successful lunchroom director must be something more than a good cook. Lunchroom management, whether in school or out, is a business, a science, and an art. The science is being well taught, but of the business and of the art of running a lunchroom girls 84 are almost as ignorant at the end of the year as at the beginning. This is a fundamental weakness. The lunchroom training falls short of reaching its highest value because supervisors neglect or overlook these two essential factors. Trade Work in Foods and SA^^TATI0N At the East Technical High School the work for junior and senior girls who specialize in foods and sanitation is trade cooking and each year about 15 take it. They spend five periods a day in classroom work in addition to whatever catering they do out- side. When they enter the class, girls have had two years regular work in the department and they are expected to use recipes intelligently and to assume responsibility for final products. There is no uni- formity of plan; the work is varied. One day the entire class is busy on a school *^ spread;^' another, two or three girls fill personal or class orders for cake, candy, or salad, while the rest of the class make sand- wiches for some bridge party. One of the most interesting and valuable features of the course is the accounting. Supplies for this are not included in the regular food supply budget for other classes. At stated times girls hand in their advance supply orders with estimated costs, and in- dividual members take turns in going to market and keeping the accounts. Each girl checks up the actual cost of her product and files with it a detailed memo- 85 randum of supplies used. At regular intervals what- ever profits are on hand are distributed among the class. During the year they may make $30 to $40 apiece in this way and a few earn another $30 by work done outside of school such as serving at dinner parties or taking charge of small private dinners, and one or two have regular customers for whom they get dinner when the maid goes out. The class is popular. There are always more appli- cants than can be accommodated with the present equipment, and girls who enter do good work and progress, but there do not seem to be positions into which they can go when they finish the course. So far as a specific technique is concerned, this course equips girls for work, but other complicating and equally potent factors enter into the situation. Par- ents and teachers agree in wanting jobs to be socially desirable. For example, the week before commence- ment it is highly laudable for a girl to serve as wait- ress at a private dinner party; for her to do the same thing the week after commencement frequently en- tails a considerable loss of social prestige. Moreover, girls are not so free as boys to follow where work leads. This past summer there were a number of excellent positions open which the school did not attempt to fill because they were out of town. Fi- nally, the majority of positions which call for skill in food selection, preparation, and care, call also for a degree of maturity which 18-year-old girls do not possess. In consequence employers are unwilling to trust them with responsible positions, no matter how 86 good cooks they are. For these reasons among others, the writer considers that, strictly speaking, this course is not vocational. Moreover, if the situation has been correctly analyzed, changes in the course will not affect these conditions which have their roots deep in economic organizations and concomitant social prejudices. Although the course does not serve the purpose intended, it has a very real cultural value, and per- haps illustrates better than any other, modern meth- ods of teaching which are gaining favor in current educational thought. Girls in this class, more than in most other classes, begin to find themselves and to assume responsibility. The writer would advocate this type of teaching throughout the four years, and certainly its extension to include all regular fourth year students, for in her judgment the teaching method in this course in trade work in foods and sanitation represents the city's best teaching in household arts. Courses of Study in Academic High Schools A two year course in household arts is being given this year for the first time in the six academic high schools and reaches 345 girls. This is primarily for first and second year girls, but junior or senior girls may elect the work. Next year, the second year of the course will have begun and the number of girls will probably increase. Seventy-two periods of 45 minutes are allotted each of the two years to foods 87 and sanitation and to clothing and textiles, including millinery. While the Survey was in progress, the Board of Education authorized household arts in these schools and appropriated funds to cover cost of structural changes and equipment. Later several well trained elementary teachers of household arts were appointed to these positions. In July the director's office had arranged for necessary structural changes in the class- rooms and was buying equipment. But in August no information regarding this new course could be ob- tained from the superintendent's office beyond the fact that such a course was to be started when school opened and that classrooms would be ready. This subject was to occupy about one-sixth of the girls' time for two years. So far as the writer can ascertain, household arts was authorized by the Board of Education as a result of a general unanalyzed feeling that since Cleveland is a city of homes, and girls are home-makers, household arts would teach them to be good home-makers. Money was appropriated to defray all necessary ex- penses, but apparently no poUcy was outlined regard- ing the nature and scope of this work; its specific contribution to the education of girls was not defined, and methods for achieving the desired result were left to chance. The general aim is 'Ho develop a good mental and moral attitude and by connecting the work with out- side interests to make the pupils better citizens whether as wage-earners or home-makers." The 88 tentative course now being given covers topics such as: Foods and nutrition Sanitation Preparing and serving of foods Home nursing and care of infants Expenditure of income Laundry work House planning Household furnishing Household decorations Sewing Millinery Teaching Body The high school force in household arts numbers 26. Twelve of them, — six in foods and sanitation and six in clothing and textiles — are at East Technical High School, seven more at West Technical High School, — three in clothing and four in foods, — and the remain- ing seven are in charge of foods and sanitation and clothing in the academic high schools. These teach- ers have in a noticeable degree the ability to make their classrooms pleasant places in which to linger. Girls are having a good time working and the rela- tionship between teachers and students is one of mutual friendliness. In preparation for their work teachers vary widely among themselves. All have had the equivalent of a normal school course in household arts and 10 are college graduates. As a group they are better paid, better trained, and more progressive than elementary 89 teachers of household arts from whose ranks many of them have been promoted. On the other hand, the comparison between high school teachers of house- hold arts, as the writer has come in contact with them in Cleveland and elsewhere, and teachers of other high school subjects, such as Uterature, history, lan- guages, or mathematics, is not favorable to house- hold arts. In city high schools teachers of academic subjects are increasingly required to have at least one aca- demic degree, and in a number competition and prac- tice are forcing them to have more than one. This means that teachers in those subjects have in general a broad background behind their specific equipment which, as a class, teachers of household arts lack, and this is true even of those who are college gradu- ates. As a group they are highly trained in the tech- nology of their subject, but their major attention, whether at college or normal school, has been focused on the details of household processes without suffi- cient provision for socializing courses to offset this limited horizon. They are, however, as well paid as teachers of the academic subjects who have had broader, and often longer preparation for their work. In Cleveland their salary scale progresses in 18 years from $1,000 to $2,000. The Cleveland teachers are distinguished by their enthusiastic faith in household arts as being of vital importance in the education of every girl. They think of their subject as one which is not only expanding rapidly, but is also markedly increasing in public 90 favor. They want to keep abreast with it and sacri- fice their vacations for summer school work, but they do not go afield and are almost never found in courses in sociology, economics, or social and industrial his- tory. The courses they choose are in their owti spe- cialty and most frequently are those which deal with highly technical phases of it. In the writer's opinion it is in this uncritical en- thusiasm that their greatest weakness Ues. As is the case with elementary teachers, and in fact with the majority of teachers whether elementary or second- ary regardless of subject, their sense of proportion is undeveloped. They are in danger of putting the emphasis in the wrong place. They seem to think of their subject, not as one of many which contributes to the education of the girl, but as an end in itself into which girls must be fitted. In this respect school and society are as much at fault as individual teachers. Present Plan Unsatisfactory This is an unsatisfactory study. Through four inter- rogatory months the writer traveled, watching and questioning, from school to school all over the city. There were many activities to note by the way; they were interesting, efficiently conducted, and appar- ently satisfying to all who participated. Probing a little below the surface, however, seemed to indicate that these activities existed as things in themselves without fundamental relation to some coromon standard. There was no one person whose business it 91 was to be occupied with high school courses in house- hold arts, and their relation to the education of the girl as a complete person. No one seemed to be ques- tioning, with grim determination to get to the roots of the situation, where in the education of girls modern practice is based on formulated knowledge and where on feeling. Principals have very different but very tenacious ideas regarding what is ^^good for girls'' and at pres- ent it is they, acting as individuals, who determine what kind of household arts shall be taught. Prin- cipals of the academic high schools made such a decision in September and several admitted with varying degrees of frankness that they knew little about suitable material for the proposed course. They seemed, to the writer, to be as unwilling to trust the making of courses to teachers recently assigned to high school positions, as to yield any of their jealously preserved authority to members of the superinten- dent's office. As a consequence of this situation, work was car- ried forward on the material equipment for the new classes in the academic high schools without any decisions having been reached as to the nature or definite purpose of the proposed courses and without any one being made responsible for formulating them, or even thinking about them. Finally, just before schools opened, the supervisor of the work in the elementary schools was asked to suggest what the courses ought to include. She was also asked to oversee the work temporarily although she was not 92 placed in responsible authority over it. The best results are not to be secured by such loose adminis- trative methods as these. Authority and respon- sibility must be definitely located in some person or persons. In this case no one of the persons concerned neglected his or her work; on the contrary, all were extremely interested and painstaking. The diffi- culty seems to lie deeper and elsewhere. Cleveland means well by its girls, but it seems to depend, for the solution of problems peculiar to their education, on tradition and generalized good inten- tions, rather than on trained intelligence. Appar- ently, as is the case with most cities, Cleveland has not believed that ^^ activity without insight is an evil,'' and that insight is of necessity based upon factors other than general assumptions and pains- taking endeavor. Insight, in this sense of social vision, is not a matter of chance, but a result of criti- cal examination of existing conditions; of weighing and balancing one against another; and of a patient, persistent, painstaking, passionate determination, re- gardless of personal bias or social prejudice, to evalu- ate evidence on its own merits. Cleveland, in the opinion of the writer, has yet to realize that, in the education of girls, as of boys, activity without social vision is an evil too costly to be borne. This city has yet to delegate to some one person or group of persons, as their most important responsibility, the task of grappling with the highly complex congeries of problems involved in the gen- eral and vocational education of girls. 93 To bring order out of the existing educational chaos will require the best intelligence of the wisest leaders. The work itself must be directed by a per- son equipped not only with the specific technique of household arts, but also with wide experience and ripened judgment. Until Cleveland formulates a conscious and deliberate policy regarding the educa- tion of its girls, and provides for adequate supervision to insure its development and fulfillment, household arts, or any other kindred subject, in the writer ^s judgment, will continue to be unsatisfactory. Summary 1. Field work for the report on household arts in secondary schools was done while the Survey was in progress. The writer visited both East and West Technical High Schools. Principals and teachers put at her disposal all printed material, such as school announcements or courses of study they had, and supplemented it by valuable comments and sugges- tions relating to problems involved in the education of girls. 2. Generous space is allotted to household arts. Classes vary from 15 to 30 girls and average about 24. Equipment is excellent and kept in good repair. Costs of equipment and maintenance cannot be given as they are included in funds set aside for in- dividual buildings. 3. General topics considered at academic and technical schools are alike, but the latter schools go 94 into greater detail and make a conscious effort to correlate each yearns work with academic subjects. The two technical high schools house 22 per cent of all high school girls. 4. Teaching in the technical high schools follows the so-called laboratory method. Girls are required to keep notebooks in which they record work as they might a laboratory experiment in chemistry. 5. The Cleveland technical high schools have as their immediate end ^Ho prepare youths of both sexes for a definite vocation and for efficient indus- trial citizenship.^' This study seems to indicate that these schools do not give girls the kind of education that fits them for jobs open to them when they leave school. 5. At West Technical High School about 15 senior students take major courses in lunchroom manage- ment. They do a large share of the work of the lunch- room, but they do not acquire a sense of responsibihty for the conduct of the work as a whole. This course teaches well the science, but neglects the business and art of lunchroom management. A study of high school lunchrooms where students are inti- mately connected with the conduct of their lunch service, as in Los Angeles or Gary, should furnish valuable practical suggestions for developing and strengthening the course. 6. At East Technical High School senior girls who specialize in foods and sanitation take trade order work in that subject. The class is popular. There are always more applicants than can be accommo- 95 dated, and girls who enter do good work and prog- ress, but available positions are not considered so- cially desirable by parents and teachers, or else they call, in addition to specific technique, for maturity which 18-year-old girls do not possess. Although the course does not serve the purpose intended, it has a very real cultural value. The writer would advocate this type of teaching through- out the four years, and certainly its extension to in- clude all regular fourth year students, for in her judgment, trade work in foods and sanitation repre- sents the city's best teaching in household arts. 7. In September, 1915, a two years^ course in household arts was organized for third and fourth year girls in the six academic schools. About one- sixth of the girl's school time for two years is allotted to this subject. Money was appropriated to defray necessary expenses, but apparently no poUcy was outUned regarding the nature and scope of this work. 8. Junior high schools were opened a Uttle later, in the fall of 1915, and those girls also are obUged to study household arts. This course is planned after that given in the elementary schools, but will prob- ably expand in the future. 9. The high school force in household arts num- bers 26. In preparation for their work teachers vary widely among themselves. They are as well paid as teachers of the academic subjects. In Cleveland their salary scale progresses in 18 years from $1,000 to $2,000. Teachers are distinguished by their faith in household arts and their eagerness to make sacri- 96 fices for it. Emphasis should be laid upon the neces- sity for broader cultural background and more active staff discussion of the wider problems con- cerning the education of girls. 10. At present there is no satisfactory^ form of supervision for household arts teaching in Cleve- land's secondary schools. This city has yet to dele- gate to some one person or group of persons, as their most important responsibility the task of grappling with the highly complex congeries of problems in- volved in the general and vocational education of girls. 97 CHAPTER V RELATION OF HOUSEHOLD ARTS TO SECONDARY EDUCATION Household arts justifies its right to a place in the curriculum in so far as it contributes to the ac- complishment of the purposes of secondary educa- tion. Important aims of secondary education are the promotion of economic independence, the under- standing of social institutions and their relative values in life, and the development of individual personality. Education for Self Support As yet the majority of women are not wage earners, but in every age an overwhelming number have been self supporting in a very real sense and in the process of earning their living have contributed to economic and social surplus in the added value goods gained through their labors. The majority always will be self supporting in that sense, but the industrial revo- lution, here as elsewhere, has made fundamental changes in the form their economic activities take and the conditions under which these activities must be conducted. 98 More and more, women are having to earn a living outside the household. In the past household arts contributed mainly to their education for self sup- port. A problem now arising is : Can household arts contribute to their education for wage earning, and in so doing help to bridge the gulf between home and market place, between woman's world and man's; a gulf that must be bridged if the transition from one to the other is to be made without too great loss. An old saw tells us not to ^^swap horses in the middle of the stream/' Women have come the far distance from primitive culture to modern civilization, not on the back of a winged steed, but on the plodding old gray horse of household work, driven by the in- exorable pressure of constant need. If properly directed, their old time work may continue to carry them safely into a new order. To make the transi- tion safely, however, some sort of plan must be de- vised which will enable women to function as effec- tively under the new system as under the old, and which will at the same time in return for their labor bring in a wage to take the place of board and lodging gained hitherto through household activities. For the first time on a large scale, industry, by encroaching upon the household has caused society to realize how manifold were the processes in which individual families engaged under the old regime. Division of labor has made possible the differentia- tion of these various techniques. Some of them, such as housekeeping, cooking, sewing, millinery, interior decorating, nursing, and child care, — apart from 99 motherhood, — are already distinct, while others, particularly in the broad field of spending, are be- ginning to emerge. Among the latter are purchasing activities of many sorts, including such occupations as shopping for persons out of town, and marketing for numerous families. Living on a budget involves another specific new task, — and, if desired, a visiting housekeeper, trained in accounting will lay out the budget, and plan so that food, clothing, shelter, health, recreation, and saving get their just and ap- proximately adequate shares of the family income. Household arts can organize the material for each of these separate occupations so that certain portions suitable to their ages and preparation are open to high school students with the definite expectation that they will use the knowledge so gained for wage- earning purposes in the period between leaving school and getting married. Until recently girls have not been wage earners during this period, but wherever the family was organized as an industrial unit, and in rural communities where it still is so organized, almost from babyhood girls have been self support- ing. At marriage they have simply transferred the scene of their labors from one household to another. At the present time many separate economic tech- niques have gone from the household; more are in process of going; and following them, as if in answer to the Pied Piper^s call, surges an ever widening stream of women and girls who from time immemorial have had these techniques in charge. Wise provision for activities of girls during this 100 interim between leaving school and entering homes of their own has become a serious problem; for this period now occupies for many women almost a decade and a lifetime for increasing numbers. This problem which education now faces is becoming particularly serious in the busy industrial centers of Massa- chusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Even though feasible the solution of the problem does not lie in forcing girls out of industry into early marriage, for the cause of postponed marriage is economic inabiUty rather than youthful unwilling- ness. Wherever work to any great extent leaves the household there comes a fundamental change in the relations of husband and wife; the wife ceases to be an economic asset and becomes a liability. Under the old system she earned her hving and added to the family wealth; under the new, the most she can do is to conserve the man's wealth after he gets it, so that increasingly unless the woman helps out by remain- ing at work a man cannot nowadays marry until he earns enough to ^ ^support'' both his wife and himself. Through reorganization to meet the needs of a new economic system, household arts can aid in giving back to women much of the work they used to do. In this way it makes a contribution to the solution of two of the most important problems in the educa- tion of women. Primarily, it gives the girl a wage- earning technique which will support her until she marries; and in addition the same technique may be made to serve her in good stead after marriage either 101 as a wage earner or as the executive head of a house- hold. Many girls do not take these vocational household arts courses in high school since they plan to support themselves by some professional or commercial oc- cupation. On the basis that the time to teach people speciaUzed skills is when they need it in their busi- ness, school should provide a wide variety of short courses in household arts for those who, if later they assume household duties of their own, wish to ac- quire added skill in their new occupation. Education for Social Relationships Boys and girls alike are born into certain social re- lationships and estabUsh others. In the course of his hfe the man extends his field, stands out in the open, as it were, and becomes known to himself and others as a person and an individual. The woman, however, who climbs out of the neutralizing background of family relationship is rare. For the boy, successful Uving necessitates a steady progress from boyhood to manhood; but for the girl it involves an unbroken passage from girlhood into wifehood and motherhood. From the cradle, society prepares girls for the great event of their Hves, — marriage. School and college have constantly to face the charge that they are not '^educating girls to be good wives and mothers.'' There is, however, no such apprehension concerning boys and their j&tness to become husbands and fathers — ^in their case, society makes an imperious 102 demand that the school educate them for economic Ufe. One is educated for marriage; the other for in- dustry. There seems to be a wide divergence in method and a difference in purpose, but in reality there has always been one common factor in the edu- cation of both. For women marriage has always meant more than wifehood or motherhood; marriage has been woman^s job and the institution which gave her the fullest opportunity to function as an economic member of society. Such being the case, it was al- most inevitable that the main emphasis in the girl's education should be put on marriage, and social pressure brought to bear on her that she marry at an early age. In such an economic situation the un- married woman was the only woman in the group with any chance ever to become a ^^ social parasite." Most of our strong social institutions had their genesis in the routine of daily life, and are capable of modification by changes which occur in the economic activities of the community. The industrial revolu- tion made drastic changes in economic life: it sub- stituted power machines and the factory system for human fingers and household industries. There was no escaping the consequences of this absolute and entire overthrow of the kinds of economy to which man had become accustomed, and in accord with which he had shaped his social and intellectual habits from the dawn of history to less than 200 years ago. By pressure of circumstances society has been forced to change its methods of doing work, but it has 103 hardly begun the more difficult, serious, and complex task of adjusting its social institutions and habits of mind to the new world into which power machines have thrust it. One of these unforeseen consequences spells tragedy for women. Not only is power machinery taking more and more of their work, but it is also insistently calUng for the adult members of the family, while the school is making an ever increasing demand for the children. Therefore, unless active measures are taken to prevent it, women who marry out of in- dustry eventually must face idle hands and homes barren of human companionship. This change af- fects all women, no matter what be their economic status or social position, but women of the upper middle class were the first group to become aware of what was happening. They early began to voice their discontent, but until very recently the only substitute that society provided or allowed for the richness and fullness of their former condition was charitable work of various kinds, or ^^ culture,'^ or social functions, — theaters and teas. The general unrest is now rapidly spreading and reaching down into the lives of women less fortunately circum- stanced. When Mr. Ford established a minimum wage of S5 per day for all adult men in his employ, he set forth his views regarding family life, and his belief in home as the place for women. Mr. Ford made his announcement in all sincerity, and there can be no question that the $5 per day exerted an enormous 104 power for good in the homes of many working men. It also partly brought about, and partly made ap- parent, a condition which Mr. Ford views \\dth alarm. Within a short time after the $5 per day schedule went into effect, houses w^ere better kept and the people in them better fed and clothed than ever be- fore, but some of the women were ambitious and de- cided that they could not only maintain this stand- ard, but better it if they too went out to work; so they got jobs in nearby factories. Thereupon, acting upon his profound belief that home is the place for women, Mr. Ford's sociological department allowed word to go abroad that in the future men whose wives worked in factories would receive a substantially smaller sum each week. When this economic com- pulsion seemed rather harsh, it was mitigated by al- lowing wives to teach music, but working in factories still had vital consequences for the weekly envelope. It is doubtful, however, if even this concession will long keep women in homes from which housework and children of school age have gone. Fortunately, the wxiter is not obliged to map out a program for the solution of the intricate human problems involved in preparing married women for the use of left-over time, but only to question whether household arts has a contribution to make. There seems to be at least one opportunity for household arts to be useful, but this is such that only mature women can profit by it. The successful running of cooperative public enterprises calls for new tech- niques. Public bath houses, recreation piers, com- 105 munity centers, playgrounds, school lunch service, food and sanitation service inspection, and the like, require skills that mature women, otherwise capable of performing the necessary duties of such positions, often lack, but which they could readily acquire. The school might properly extend its activities for their benefit and organize courses to equip them for work now available. Many of these positions have the further advan- tage of being only part time jobs, so that women can use their increasing margin of time to good advantage in them as well as do their necessary household work. The writer has had personal experience, extending over a number of years, with this kind of work and has found that married women do it admirably and that their sense of responsibility to their work does not impair that which they feel towards their house- holds. If the institution of marriage then is ceasing to afford full time occupation to women, the problem of educating them for varied social relations is present and serious. It is not possible of simple remedy, and it cannot be solved either by adding or subtracting household arts from the school program. Instead, the curriculum should be critically examined to in- sure that education gives girls as well as boys an in- creasing ability to form satisfying social relations of many kinds. 106 Educatioh fob Ixdividuax Pebsokality Whether education shall place emphasis on indi- vidual initiative or nprm social subordination Is a question which confronts school and society. The answer has hitherto depended upon whether the education of boys or of girls was under conaidera- tion. For boys the emphasis has been on individual initiative; for girls on individual subordination. Rich man^ poor maii^ beggar man, thief, Doctor^ IsLwyear, merdiant, chief. He tells them over to find out which he will be; she to find out who he will be. Putting aside the questions of social justice, or the wisdom of emjjhasizing two such contrasting habits of thought in persons who must live together with satisfaction to both if marriage is to be success- ful, the query arises as to how this condition arose. No single explanation would l>e satisfactory, but the economic factor has, beyond doubt, bulked large. In the main men have had to earn a li\4ng under conditions which called for individual initiative, and those who pulled through were men who developed ability to go after what they wanted when once they liad decided what they did want. Moreover, as society expanded and work Ijecame more highly specialized, they were forced, many times, to stand alone, without the Vjacking of social groups other than those with which they had been able to form connections. In consequence, the family ceased to be the supreme factor. The chief traits that boys de- 107 veloped first were those that made for success in the world where they worked. Girls did likewise, but the two worlds were different and so were the habits formed. Women lived and worked within the boundaries of one institution, the home, and were obliged to con- form in thought and deed to tangible and intangible standards imposed upon them by the conditions of life there. They were expected to have, and those who survived did develop, the virtues of self control, self sacrifice, self denial, and finally if they attained, as did Griselda, to poets^ fancy, — selflessness. Wo- men lived in and through and by some form or other of family relationship. Their success as women and wives was in direct proportion to the ready self effacement of any individual personality they might have inherited from their fathers. They were lost if separated from the family group, not so much be- cause of the laws of nature, as many people to this day insist, but more because of the effects of nurture, and the fact that the world outside of the household was man's world and truly foreign to them. It was a world in the making and running of which they had no responsible part and one where the rules of the game called for a technique of thought, word, and deed, different from any that they had been obliged to acquire. In fact it was diametrically opposed to the life they were obliged to lead. Whether we approve or not the barrier between the two worlds is fast breaking down, and women driving motor trucks or at work in munition factories are 108 wiping out many of its traces. Men and women now join in the common routine of daily tasks in the busi- ness world, but they have yet to establish a satis- factory human meeting ground. Men know their way about the work into which women have recently come, for it is the one that men have made for them- selves in the slow process of time, but women grope and stumble there. One great and present task for school and society is to enable women to pull them- selves from out the binding trammels of tradition that they may walk surefooted with their fellow beings. This is a most difficult undertaking. Women and home are bound up with the deepest feelings of the race, and because this is so there is a vast deal of sentimentality about the matter as well as sturdy sentiment. There is no other social institution more set about with taboos and inhibitions than the fam- ily, and the very nature of the girFs relation to the home makes it difficult to do other than substitute feeling for thinking in considering her educational needs. Therefore, a conscious and deliberate effort has to be made to get a social, impersonal, and ob- jective view on the situation. If girls are to stand side by side with their brothers in the world outside the home, they must become conscious of themselves as economic members of the community, not as transient intruders, but as people with a permanent and continuous interest in and con- nection with manifold economic activities. Further, they will need to understand and cultivate those qualities which contribute to success in such a world. 109 Summed up in briefest form, these qualities are the ability to regard a subject objectively and imper- sonally, and put it in its proper social setting. Girls need to realize that success depends upon accomplish- ment, not upon good intentions; and that to a large degree it is achieved through purposeful activity. Above and beyond all, girls should be educated to crave for and strive after intellectual honesty, that is, the habit of telling themselves the truth about all things and people, themselves included. This is a painful process, but truly exhilarating, for in some queer, miraculous fashion limitations faced cease to be limitations. Proudly borne these limita- tions may even blossom forth as assets, and in any case they permit one, knowing the worst, to accept it and turn thought and effort to other and more fruitful uses. Finally, if the girls are to be good citi- zens in this new world they should learn to pay in full measure for what they get, to be above accepting what they have not earned. To borrow their brother's phraseology, they must learn to ^^play the game.'' In the presence of such a problem household arts becomes but one of many factors, all of which should be organized to the conscious and deliberate end that through education girls as well as boys may gain the ability to substitute self control for home control. Moral Equivalents for Home Home has been one of the dynamic factors of civiliza- tion. It was the place where people of different kinds 110 and ages, both sexes and different interests, held to- gether by kinship and the common necessity of earn- ing a living, first came to have an affectionate knowl- edge of each other, and tolerance of others, and eventually to work out a method of living, working, and playing together that came to be both harmoni- ous and efficient. Lessons learned at home were not taken from a course of study designed to discipline students^ minds, but were real problems imposed upon individuals by group necessities, and the pen- alty for not solving them was rarely postponed and was paid by the family as well as the individual di- rectly responsible. The shifting of work from home to factory gave a death blow to the importance of many subjects in the home curriculum. It also made apparent for the first time how undifferentiated this course of study had been. The business of even an average household in that older time was so intricate and many-sided that from dawn to dusk children and grown-ups were kept busy with tasks suited, in the main, to their various tastes and abilities. In addition work was done in a fa- mihar place in company with members of one's own family and was so organized that there was time for rest and recreation for all members of the household at odd moments throughout the day. This meant that under the old regime people could lead approxi- mately full and rounded lives within household boundaries, for work and rest and play were all pro- vided for within the system. Such is no longer the case. Ill The world outside the household now affords as great, if not greater, opportunities for full and rounded living. To live fully and freely in the out- side world, however, necessitates kinds of education, social adjustment, and individual self consciousness not required by the undifferentiated manner of life when each family was much more nearly a self suffi- cient economic unit. Work in office and factory now takes from the heart of the day solid blocks of time once given over to a wide range of household activi- ties. Moreover, as great fields of work and numbers of people were lost to the household, the necessity of adequately providing for play activities becomes more apparent and serious. Gradually recreation outside the household, whether intellectual, emo- tional, or esthetic, came to occupy time after working hours, and on holidays and Sundays. The enormous popularity of '^commerciaUzed'' recreations of an onlooking type suggests that at present the majority of people in cities are either too tired when night comes or too untrained to initiate pleasant ways of spending leisure time. Society is realizing this de- ficiency and beginning to take measures to over- come it, as witness the wider use of the school plant, public recreation parks and piers, and community centers standing side by side with commercialized recreation. The most important element of home is the feeling atmosphere engendered by people working or pla3dng together with harmonious and efficient unity of pur- pose. Hitherto in our thinking this feeUng has been 112 associated with the family group at work within the confines of the house; we have yet consciously to realize that it is this feeling atmosphere which is the vital and dynamic thing, not the house which once confined it. Household organization has changed and single groups cannot long continue to provide it unaided, for it is a hving atmosphere which people make wherever and whenever they establish satis- factory human relationship, whether those relation- ships be within or without their immediate famiUes. To keep women in houses now largely void of lifers realities is to defeat the very purpose of those who are most insistent on home as the place for women. Home is the place for women, and men and children Ukewise, but it is not confined to any one particular place set off by a gatepost or chimney corner. Wo- men have always contributed largely to the creation of the home feeling, and will continue to contribute in proportion as they realize that life is flowing through new channels different from any before, and that it is life that matters, not the frame which once held it, nor future forms which it may take. Women have already begun to learn this truth. People who temper the wind to shorn families are many of them women. They are called visiting nurses, visiting housekeepers, and social workers, but they are just women doing what women have done from time immemorial, trying to make others comfortable. Household arts will become a social science when it provides for these women, striving to carry on their ancient tasks, techniques developed 8 113 for the purpose of serving human needs of people Uving together in society. Summary 1. Household arts justifies its place in the curric- ulum in so far as it contributes to the accomplish- ment of the purposes of secondary education. Im- portant ones among them are the promotion of eco- nomic independence, an understanding of social in- stitutions, and the development of individual per- sonaUty. 2. The majority of women are not wage-earners, but an overwhelming number have always been self- supporting. The majority always will be self-sup- porting, but under modern conditions their economic activities take on new forms. 3. Household arts has always contributed to edu- cation for self-support. It can now contribute to education for wage-earning. 4. Many girls do not take these vocational courses in household arts. The school should provide short courses in household arts for those who at some later time may wish such instruction. 5. Marriage has always been a full-time job for women. Much of the married woman^s work has left the household and new work is not taking its place. Household arts can help her to use her free time to good advantage in part-time community work. 6. Women have lived and worked within the 114 boundaries of one institution, the home. The bar- riers between the world within and the world with- out her home are breaking down. Education for girls as for boys should emphasize self control rather than home control. Household arts is but one of many contributing factors to such an end. 7. To keep women in homes prevents their getting the wider social contacts which they need in the modem world. As \'isiting nurses, \isiting house- keepers, and social workers generally they get an understanding of these broader social relationships. Household arts can help develop the required skills. 115 CHAPTER VI ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LUNCH SERVICE Food is a natural need of all children. They cannot get it at home in the middle of the morning, for com- pulsory attendance puts them in school; and many cannot get a hot meal at home at dinner time because their mothers are away at work in the factory. The school did not make these conditions, but it recog- nizes them and purposes meeting them through the school lunch. At recess such service provides lunch for all hungry children who want to spend their pen- nies for milk, cocoa, graham crackers, ^^ jelly bread,'' a bit of sweet chocolate, or an apple; and at noon there is an appetizing meal under wholesome condi- tions for children whose elders are at work. Such a division, however, does a good deal more than feed children. It offers large opportunity to teach them essential facts about food and its uses. Through the children this very practical knowledge gets back to the mothers. That this influence is of real and immediate value is well illustrated in the case of foreign mothers. They were admirable man- agers in the old country, but in the United States everjrthing is new and the language strange, so that they cannot talk to the people who could tell them 116 why everything here is so different. One of their great chances to learn is through the children who talk at home about what they had to eat at school, how good it was, and how much they got for a penny. Italian children at the Murray Hill School are asking their mothers for milk and dishes like those they get at school. Doctors say that it is not so difficult as it used to be to get people to take milk when they pre- scribe it. In Philadelphia, mothers come to the lunch counter asking how to cook rice the way the children get it there and wanting to buy what is left over at the end of the day. In New York they go to the school asking to buy their lunch too, and every day sees a few mothers eating lunch with the children. ReUable dealers want school lunch trade. Milk- men take great pains to give good service as well as good milk and before very long all children know the name and brand of milk served. They know the names and prices of various crackers, too, and who makes them, and they ask for their favorite kinds. Naturally, tastes formed at school carry back and gradually begin to affect the daily market order. The need to choose carefully, use well, and spend wisely applies to all children, girls and boys aUke. To a great extent the health and comfort of the family will depend on how well women spend the common earnings. Men, whether or not they carry a dinner pail, use restaurants and ought to have sane stand- ards on which to base their orders. Both girls and boys make economic adjustments long before they know the meaning of the term. 117 Participation in a real business which they them- selves support may teach them to discriminate; to take into account various items of overhead charge, raw materials, service, and interest, which enter into the selling price of every article they buy. It may give them a working knowledge of business principles and ethics and a little appreciation of the extent to which their success outside of school will depend on their ability to use cooperatively the collective efforts of others. A far-sighted lunch department will try to bring about this condition, in other words to become, for all its patrons, a practice school in spending. So far little has been done along this line in the elementary schools, but in certain high schools, notably those in Los Angeles, such a plan has met with marked success. The school lunch division takes thought also for the food needs of exceptional children as well as average children, and through food dispensaries can provide machinery for their adequate care at a mini- mum cost to the pubUc. Elementary School Lunches from Two Points of View There are two separate and distinct viewpoints with regard to elementary school feeding. The one regards this service as being primarily charitable in character, and to be handled by the school on that basis only. It looks upon the elementary service as a real but 118 regrettable necessity imposed upon the authorities by the practical problem of providing food for excep- tional children whose parents are too poor or too ignorant to do it for them. The other group considers school feeding essen- tially social in character, in that it recognizes a natu- ral need of all children, rich and poor, well and under- nourished, aUke. It considers the service a proper function of the school because it utilizes a child's natural appetite to teach him for what kind of food to spend his money and how to apportion it. It fur- ther reaUzes that in creating a department to serve all children, the school has at hand without further expense all necessary machinery for caring for the undernourished child in whatever way his special needs may demand. Elementary lunch service in Cleveland is of the first kind. It was organized six years ago by the Philanthropy Committee of the Women's Federation of Clubs "to provide breakfasts for anaemic and undernourished children'' at a school in a very poor and greatly congested section of the city. Today the Committee's purpose is the same as it was six years ago, — provision for the exceptional child. Its active interest has never been extended to a consideration of the normal child and his needs, although to both school and society he is far and away the more im- portant. The school board is in a somewhat different posi- tion. Three years ago when the first open air classes were started, it assumed financial responsibility for 119 lunch for children in those classes, and later, when special provision was made for crippled and blind children, it included them. In so doing the Board of Education was far in advance of most school boards which do not recognize the necessity on the part of the school to care adequately for all children for whom it has assumed a particular obligation. Plenty of nourishing food is an essential in the treatment of open air and undernourished children. Blind and crippled children cannot go home at noon, so some provision must be made for them at school. The Board of Education recognizes and meets its obligations with regard to exceptional children. So far it has not realized its responsibility towards all children nor appreciated the opportunity here offered through the every day demonstration at the school lunch counters to strengthen its teaching with regard to the hygiene of daily living in which diet plays so important a part. Present Situation in Cleveland In Cleveland there are 12 schools with special classes for crippled, blind, or open air children. These classes receive meals at school. At noon blind chil- dren get milk or cocoa; crippled children get milk or cocoa, soup, or meat and potatoes, bread spread with jam or jelly, and fruit or cookies. Open air children have recess lunch both morning and afternoon, and those children, who for one reason or another cannot go home at noon, get a midday meal. 120 o o o On the recommendation of principal and medical inspector, undernourished children who do not belong to any of these groups receive breakfast and one or more additional meals for an indefinite period, de- pending upon their physical condition, but they are exceptions. These children pay a penny apiece for lunch and the deficit on each meal is made up by voluntary contributions. On December 6, 1909, the Philanthropy Commit- tee of the Cleveland Federation of Women's Clubs began this work with just 19 children. The purpose, as given in the minutes of the Committee, was 'Ho provide breakfasts for anaemic and undernourished children at Eagle School, with this proviso, that the Board of Education sanction and cooperate in the undertaking.'' One school had breakfasts in 1909. The following year service was extended to Rockwell, and at the present time meals are provided for all special classes in grade schools, except at the deaf school, where the children bring their lunches. The attendance at these classes is 65 blind, 81 crippled, 225 open air children, and approximately 400 undernourished children. The Board of Education furnishes and equips lunchrooms and kitchens. For crippled and open air children the Philanthropy Committee of the Federation of Women's Clubs provides food and at each school employs a woman to prepare it. For the blind, the Society for Promoting the Interests of the Blind takes charge. The Committees, in consulta- 121 tion with principal, medical inspector, and supervisor of high school lunches, make out the different menus. The Board of Education contracts with these com- mittees to furnish meals to exceptional children in specified schools at so much per child per day, ac- cording to the kind and number of meals supplied. School Meals as Supplements or Substitutes FOR Home Meals At first glance the tangle, presented by these various groups of children receiving different kinds of lunch, seems too complicated for any one but a dietitian to grasp. It can, however, be resolved into order by a very simple classification. These lunches are of just two kinds: those which supplement a home meal, and those which take the place of one. Here in a nutshell is the main feeding problem which confronts every school lunch service, and, from the dietitian's point of view, the final criterion for judging the success or failure of such a department. Lunches which supplement the family dietary pre- sent the simpler feeding problem and are cheaper to provide. They make no pretense of doing any- thing more than give children a little wholesome food when they want it, and when it is good for them to have it. Three or four crackers; a cup of milk, cocoa, or soup; an apple, an orange, or a few dates answer every purpose of this type of lunch and satisfy the children. A cent or two will buy all that the average 122 child needs, and if the department is sufficiently large and well organized the child's pennies will pay the cost of both food and service. Recess lunches in Cleveland and throughout the country generally fall into this category of supplemental feeding. Meals which take the place of home meals present more difficulties. Here again are two kinds. The first takes the place of breakfast, and very occasion- ally, of a light luncheon. More and more in America, as in most foreign households, breakfast is an unpre- tentious meal. Fruit, cereal with top milk, toast, and perhaps an egg, make a good combination for the school child. When necessary, the school lunch de- partment can readily provide such a meal, (substitut- ing for the costly egg an extra piece of toast, or more cereal and milk) and still have the cost fall within a three or five cent limit. With slight variations in the menu, the same thing holds true for the light luncheon. The important problem of ways and means is pre- sented by the dinner. For many people noon dinner is the main meal of the day, and must furnish not only high fuel value, but also the greater part of a day's re- quirements of protein and of inorganic salts, and the whole in bulky enough form to keep the digestive tract in good condition. This is the crux of the situation and school lunch departments are gradually coming to see that it is so, and to plan their work accordingly. Sometimes the service has to provide the entire meal, at other times to supplement a lunch brought from home, but either way the problem is to insure the 123 child's getting a dinner which measures up to the standard set forth above. To do this requires con- siderable ingenuity, careful consideration of condi- tions as they exist in different schools, and an organi- zation elastic enough to take them into account in its planning. Such a type of organization is costly. Only an experienced dietitian will be able to find a cheap and palatable, easy-to-prepare, dietetically '^just as good'' substitute for bacon and eggs, or fresh peas and new potatoes with porterhouse steak. However, it can be done, and no lower standard of achievement should be accepted. Kinds of Lunches and by Whom Peovided Lunches to supplement home meals, and lunches to take the place of home meals are served to certain of Cleveland's elementary school children. Food plays an important part in the treatment of children in open air classes and is given to supplement the home dietary. These children receive two lunches a day: one at 10 o'clock, the other at two. They go home at noon. Menus are alike in all schools and the list from which morning and afternoon lunches are chosen is the same. Lunch consists of milk, or cocoa, or soup with crackers, or bread spread with jelly, jam, or peanut butter. Such a lunch is good for children; they like it; and it measures up to the standard. The minimum fuel value for the two meals is 390 calories of the kind of food specified in the contract between the Board of Education and the Philan- 124 thropy Committee. It costs eight cents per child per day. The unprepared food material costs on an average not more than a cent for 130 calories, which divides the cost of meals into three cents for food and five cents for service. Blind children stay in school all day, so provision must be made for their midday meal, which for many is the main meal of the day. The school provides soup or cocoa, and the rest of their dinner children bring from home. In its contract the Board of Education specifies the minimum fuel value (100 calories) per portion, but it does not specify the kind of hot dish, nor the amount of protein to a portion. One-half cup of cocoa, or of bean soup would satisfy the contract as it now stands. As a matter of fact, the committee gives these children from 200 to 250 calories per por- tion instead of 100. The price paid by the Board is four cents per portion. The ingredients used cost about three-fourths of a cent per 100 calories. In point of fuel value the food which these children are actually receiving is probably adequate, or nearly so. The hot dish contributes from 200 to 250 calo- ries, and their sandwiches and fruit or cake 300 to 400 more. Such a meal, however, has several serious drawbacks. It becomes monotonous and children lose appetite; further, it is doubtful if it always meets the other specifications for a well-balanced midday meal for children. These are: at least one-half of the day's requirements of protein and a large propor- tion of those of inorganic salts, all combined in such 125 form as to furnish sufficient bulk to keep the digestive tract in good condition. It is barely possible that such a meal could be pro- vided at little, if any, increased cost to the school, but to do so would require careful planning and supervision, and such supervision is not possible under the present system of divided control and responsibility. Crippled children cannot make two trips back and forth a day. In consequence, they, too, have dinner at school, but they get a regular meal consisting of bread and jam and a hot dish, such as beef stew, minced meat with potatoes, thick soup, or macaroni with tomato sauce. A few, on order from the medical inspector, get milk in the morning. The contract calls for 300 calories per meal, but children receive about 500. This is a more appetizing meal than the blind children have, but it falls short of the stand- ard in amount of protein, salts, etc., in the same way as do the dinners for those children. Twelve cents is set aside for each of these meals, and even allowing for the extra service required by them this amount should be nearly sufficient to provide an adequate meal. Children for whom food is provided are in small and widely separated groups; for this reason service charges are high. The only way to reduce these charges to any appreciable degree would be by intro- ducing a recess lunch service into all schools where special meals are now being served. Such a plan is discussed further on. 126 Meals as described are paid for by the Board of Education and served to crippled and open air chil- dren by the Philanthropy Committee of the Cleve- land Federation of Women's Clubs; for blind (begin- ning February, 1915) by the Society for Promoting the Interest of the Bhnd. The cost to the Board of Education for lunches of these various groups of children for 1914-1915 is given in Tables 1, 2, and 3. TABLE 1.— COST TO CLEVELAND BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR TWO LUNCHES A DAY FOR OPEN AIR CHILDREN " Children in open air classes at Total Cost at 1914-1915 eight a flj o 28 T3 d cents 1 1 t ^ ^ per day September 8 102 25 27 25 207 «132.48 October 21 115 25 29 25 27 221 371.28 November 18 120 25 25 30 27 227 326.88 December 17 120 29 25 30 27 231 314.16 January 20 118 29 26 25 27 225 360.00 February- 19 117 30 27 30 25 229 348.08 March 20 120 28 27 27 25 227 363.20 April 20 120 28 27 27 27 229 366.40 May- 20 120 25 27 27 28 227 363.20 June 14 120 30 25 25 25 225 252.00 Total 177 1,172 274 266 273 263 2,248 $3,197.68 The Philanthropy Committee, in addition to its other work, furnishes breakfasts and ^^ penny'' lunches in certain schools. At Murray Hill and Rock- well they serve bre^,kfast, at St. Clair dinner, and at Eagle both breakfast and noon lunch. Accurate figures giving the number of children in different 127 schools receiving meals could not be obtained, but the report of the Committee, May, 1915, states that ''710 children are being cared for daily, 400 of whom receive breakfast/' This figure included a number of children who went to East End Neighborhood House for their dinner. TABLE 2.— COST TO CLEVELAND BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR ONE HOT DISH AT NOON FOR BLIND CHILDREN Portions served per month at Total por- tions Cost at four cents per portion 1915 i 5 d o a (A § 1 a > February- March April May June 56 260 264 251 166 12 255 242 180 156 220 190 140 40 270 251 305 210 144 220 190 130 24 110 220 200 130 132 1,039 1,417 1,316 932 $5.28 41.56 56.68 52.64 37.28 Total 997 845 550 1,076 684 684 4,836 $193.44 Breakfast consists of cereal with milk and sugar, cocoa, or soup, and bread and jam, and is provided free of charge by the Committee. It is for anaemic and undernourished children who are selected by the medical inspector and the principal. A few of the open air children at Eagle and Murray Hill have breakfast. Dinner consists of a hot dish, soup, macaroni with cheese or tomato sauce, or meat and potato, and bread and jelly. It is open to the same criticism as the other dinners described. The children who re- 128 ceive it are anaemic and undernourished and are selected by the principal and medical inspector. A few open air children at Eagle School who live out of the district and too far away to go home at noon are allowed for this reason to get their dinner at school. They pay a penny apiece. TABLE 3.— COST TO CLEVELAND BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR NOON MEAL FOR CRIPPLED CHILDREN AT WILLSON SCHOOL Number Number of Cost at 12 cents 1914-1915 of days children per day per child September 13 72 $112.32 October 21 80 201.60 November 18 81 174.96 December 17 83 169.32 January 20 82 196.80 February 19 83 189.24 March 20 86 206.40 April 20 85 204.00 May 20 75 180.00 June 14 85 142.80 Total 182 812 $1,777.44 Lunchrooms and Preparation of Food For blind children, cooking, serving, and dishwashing are done in classrooms except at Addison and Mill where other rooms are utilized. At Harmon and Waring, children are big enough and can see well enough to prepare and serve the meal. At Addison, Mill, and Waverley, a woman is paid 50 cents a day to do the work, and at Kennard one of the senior students in trade cookery at East Technical does it. She receives the same wage as the others. At the 9 129 Willson School for Cripples food is prepared in a small kitchen and served in a room used as a class- room. The cook takes entire charge and does all work ex- cept at dinner time when she has two assistants to help with the serving. She works on an average five hours per day and receives $7.50 per week. The as- sistants work six hours per day and each receives $5 per week. Except for serving, their work is un- connected with the lunchroom. Two dollars and a half per week for each is a fair charge against the lunch service. At Warren, St. Clair, and Mound, where open air classes are in "portables'' in the school yard, lunch is prepared and served in the classrooms. At Eagle, open air children are on the roof and kitchens and lunch rooms are up there, as they will be in the new Murray Hill Annex. Gay pictures, fresh curtains, sunshine, and grow- ing things in pots, with underneath the cleanliness of soap, water, and fresh paint are first impressions of these rooms. They are distinctly pleasant places in which to linger, especially when rows of hungry children are seated at the long tables. The children fare well, so well that it seems a pity that these rooms are for exceptional children only. Because of limited finances and lack of space normal children are not invited. Two organizations, under conditions which call for school cooperation, are doing work for which the Board of Education pays. This divides responsibility 130 and largely leaves the individual cooks to manage their own schools. The Philanthropy Committee sends to the school such supplies as can be accommodated and renews the stock as it gets low. Individuals, guilds, and busi- ness houses contribute jellies, jams, dry groceries, crackers, and cookies, in some cases through the Com- mittee, in others direct to the school. Cooks use whatever comes their way, but the Committee some- times does not know of the donation until some time after it is exhausted. So long as the food is ready on time and children like it, the cooks do pretty much as they please, for the supervision is for product ob- tained, not method employed. Since standard recipes are not used, dishes vary from school to school, but the food is generally well cooked, and children eat all that is given them. Often they ask for more, which they get until the supply is exhausted. All food prepared is eaten, but the system is costly. If meals were more carefully planned and work more critically supervised, as good results could be secured for less effort and money. Food Natural Need of All Children No one teaches children to spend their pennies for things to eat; given a penny, they do it quite spon- taneously. The school lunch recognizes this natural demand for food which all children make and pur- poses using it for their advantage. In New York and Philadelphia, street vendors 131 try hard for this trade, and in schools which have no lunch service, do a thriving business. In Cleveland vendors are not allowed in or near school yards, but small shops take their place in getting pennies. Man- ufacturers vie with one another for this business and turn out an ingenious and varied assortment of '^ penny'' goods to attract trade. The rapid increase in kind and number of slot machines alone shows that it pays well. The morning recess provides a good opportunity for children to get food when they want it at a time when it is good for them. For one reason or another, — such as no appetite, late rising, no one to oversee them, — ^many children start the day on an insuffi- cient or improper breakfast or none at all. By 10 o'clock they are hungry and ready to eat substantial food. If they know they can get lunch at school, they will save their pennies and buy it, otherwise they patronize small shops, vendors, or slot machines on the way to and from school. Then, too, children who have had a good breakfast at home are hungry by 10 o'clock and welcome a light lunch. It takes the edge off their appetites, keeps them from getting so restless in the long hour from 11 to 12, relieves the strain on the teacher, and enables her to use that period to greater advantage. School Lunch or Street Lunch It is not for the school to permit children to get food at home or go without. The children have al- 132 ^^^Nr'^^^^B ^^^^^K^~^?^m"*£s s ^^^^1 ^^^HL '.^L. .uiiM^ M 'Jl ' "^ '^'^'U ^^^^^^^^^. sssr i^mm ■ 1 MM Lunches for children, — the street kind versus the school kind ready decided that question. They want food and have money to buy it. The school cannot prevent their doing so, but it can control the kind and quality of food they get and the circumstances under which they get it. The street lunch is of cheap material, high priced. It is selected, not to meet the special needs of grow- ing children, but for profit. It is exposed to dust and dirt, kept under unstandardized and often unsanitary conditions, and handled by careless people. Every time they buy it, children get wrong impressions about what constitutes food and how much and how good food a nickel or a penny will buy. When the school serves lunch, it provides at fair prices a wide variety of wholesome food, especially adapted to children's needs. The meal is prepared and served under sanitary conditions by skilled people. Day by day the lunchroom drives home certain useful impressions, such as, ^^Cost varies ac- cording to what you buy;" ^^The most 'filling' thing you can get for a penny is rice pudding or graham crackers;'' ''When you are cold and hungry, hot bean soup is a lot better than a pickle or three laven- dar gum drops;" "Somebody must pay for break- age, service, and wasted food;" "Cost depends on what you get for the money." Children are conservative shoppers and not easily tempted by new dishes. The chap, who, with one cent deeply deposited in some obscure pocket, wants bean soup, is not to be beguiled by macaroni and tomato sauce which he knows only by reputation. 133 He loiters down the counter till he finds something which looks familiar and buys that. Economic stress at home shows up very plainly at lunch time and affects both the kind of food chosen and the amount spent. Unemployment struck Phila- delphia hard in the winter of 1914-15. Children who generally had two pennies to spend for lunch had one, or there was one to the family, and how to get the most for that penny was most carefully con- sidered. Average receipts per school dropped, but sales of hot dishes, soup, cocoa, succotash, increased. The demand for sweet chocolate, stick candy, and peanuts fell off; but graham crackers, milk lunch crackers, and pretzels more than held their own. Teaching children to eat nutritious food is good, but teaching them to buy it is much better. Polish children in Philadelphia will consume large quanti- ties of corn-meal mush with milk when it is given to them, but when it is offered for sale they buy candy instead. This is one of the weak points about free feeding, for exceptional children who get free meals are taught to eat what is set before them, not to de- mand and buy wholesome food only. The school cannot prevent normal children from buying lunch and at the same time forming concep- tions about food and food values, but it can direct this buying and insure their forming rational stan- dards of food values. When children get wholesome food in school and sane habits of buying it which carry over after they leave school, the lunch service has accomplished one important part of its work. 134 Food Clinics Public schools exist for all children, and all chil- dren must attend school. This places upon the school the burden of caring for all alike. The exceptional child must be especially provided for at meal time because he is blind or crippled and cannot go home for dinner; the open air or under-nourished child, because his parents are too ignorant or too poor to provide a sufficient amount of proper food for him. These under-nourished children are a menace, not only to themselves but to all other children. When they are exposed to contagious disease, they suc- cumb almost immediately, and in proportion as they are under-nourished. The remedy is simple. Food of the right kind in sufficient amounts is largely the treatment for malnutrition. Provision for exceptional children is neither diffi- cult nor costly when a lunch service is already organ- ized. BUnd and crippled children require the same kind of food as do any others, but need additional service, — an extra meal, or one served separately. Likewise open air and under-nourished children do not require a special diet. They need more food at shorter intervals with greater emphasis on certain kinds. ^^ Special feeding '^ cases, which occur infre- quently, call in large measure for specified quantities of foods which are on the regular menu, or which can easily be obtained. 135 Medical Inspection Cooperation Desirable Food clinics offer an opportunity for cooperation between the school lunch department and school doctors and nurses. The lunch department may make itself felt in the home through a new channel. Doctors and nurses have won the confidence of the parents through service rendered. They are giving instruc- tions about various health needs of children. The lunch department can help here. It can work out the daily or weekly diet of children in relation to age, family tastes, standards, and amount to be spent. It can help with advice and suggestions regarding '^special feeding'' cases and, if necessary, provide recipes and show mothers how to prepare various new and unknown dishes. Lunch Service a Big Business At first glance it seems hardly worth while to give much time and thought to what children do with their pennies, but their spendings amount to an enormous sum each year. Table 4 shows what chil- dren spend for their lunches in other cities. table 4. -WHAT children IN OTHER CITIES SPENT AT SCHOOL IN 1914-15 City Number of schools Number of children in schools Total receipts Average annual ex- penditure per child in school New York Buffalo Cincinnati Columbus 19 16 14 4 27,500 1,500 600 1,269 $14,810 2,261 1,260 723 $0.54 1.51 2.10 .57 136 For Cleveland there are no figures available, as the city provides lunch for exceptional children only, and the majority of them are fed free. But children here are like city children elsewhere. They spend money for lunch and, where no other provision is made, buy it at the small store. As a rule small shop- keepers are opposed to school meals for it interferes with their trade. Because it was cutting into the trade of a nearby store there is an injunction (by agreement) against one of the Cleveland high schools to prevent its lunchroom from selling more than one plate of ice cream to a child. Candy may not be sold either, though chocolate is counted a food and al- lowed because of its high food value. Yet sugar in candy is food and one which is very necessary to health. Children all crave sweets and will have them. To meet this demand, the lunchroom was providing a good grade at a moderate price. It was forced to close out its stock and stand by while students pur- chased no better but more expensive kinds down the street. Ice cream is a wholesome food, much better for growing children than pie; the injunction per- mits only one five cent plate of cream to a child, but raises no question as to the amount of pie he may get. On the other hand, reliable manufacturers wel- come school lunch service for it meets and standard- izes a profitable but unstable trade. This centraliza- tion makes the trade bulk larger and gives it an in- creased advertising value which manufacturers are quick to recognize. Lunchrooms are already equipped in a number of 137 elementary schools. At little additional expense they could be utilized by all children in those schools. These children have pennies; they are spending them, but will not get their money^s worth until the school provides lunch service for them. Consolidated Lunch Service At the present time the Board of Education is pay- ing for meals for children in special classes. These meals are provided by the Philanthropy Committee of the Cleveland Federation of Women's Clubs and the Society for Promoting the Interests of the Blind. Responsibility of the service is divided between the two committees and the division of medical inspec- tion. High school lunches are served by individual concessionnaires at the various schools, under the supervision of the division of medical inspection. Elementary and secondary school lunches should be under one division, although considered separately in regard to menus, price, size of portions, and methods of service. They should have uniform direc- tion, uniform standards, and a central buying and accounting system to make possible a comparison of costs and results and to insure in both the carry- ing out of a sequential and constructive plan of work. The purpose and general program of lunch service for grade and secondary schools are much the same. They differ most in details of administration, and of the two the elementary service is by far the more 138 difficult to handle satisfactorily. In Cleveland the population in the 100 grade schools is nine times as great as in the 12 high schools. The children are younger. They have less money to spend than do older children and they are more influenced by seasons and the weather. Children as well as grown-ups have marked tastes and individual preferences, so that whoever is re- sponsible for elementary school lunches has to be continually on the alert if the pupils are to get their money^s worth of food they like which measures up to the standard. Summary 1. This report is based on visits made to each of the various types of school where lunch is served; on interviews at the schools with principals, class teachers, and cooks; on careful study of minutes of the Board of Education which relate to elementary lunch service since its beginning in 1909; on study of all available material issued by the Federated Clubs; and on conferences with the chairman of the Philanthropy Committee, the superintendent of lunches, the director of medical inspection, the school architect, supervisor of requisitions and sup- plies, and the director of schools. 2. There are two viewpoints regarding school feed- ing: the one, Cleveland's, that it is a duty imposed upon the school by the particular needs of a partic- ular group; the other, that school lunches meet a natural need of all children, normal and exceptional, 139 and afford at the same time an opportunity to teach them to choose wisely the food they buy. 3. School lunches are of two kinds: those which supplement the home dietary, and those which take the place of meals at home. Recess lunches generally fall into the former class, noon lunches into the latter. Recess lunches present the simpler feeding problem and are cheaper to provide. Noon lunches are much more complex. 4. Cleveland is far in advance of most cities in providing lunches, served under sanitary conditions, for all members of classes for blind, crippled, and open air children. 5. The Board of Education pays for meals which the Philanthropy Committee of the Federation of Women's Clubs and the Society for Promoting the Interests of the Blind provide. Responsibility for details of work is divided among the two organiza- tions, the principals, and the supervisor of high school lunches. Food is wholesome and plentiful, but not uniform in quality. It is prepared by women engaged by the two organizations. They use their judgment regarding recipes, methods of preparation, and re- sults to be obtained. 6. Cleveland's lunch service is costly because: a. Lunch is served to exceptional children only, in small and widely scattered groups. b. Authority and responsibility for the service are divided, making impossible any definite and centralized contracts or planning. 7. The school exists for all children and must care 140 for all. Food is a natural need of all children. Morn- ing recess provides a good opportunity for all children to get food when they want it at a time when it is good for them. Through food clinics it can care for under-nourished children who are a menace, not only to themselves, but to all other children. Food is the treatment for malnutrition. 8. Children spend money for food. Given the op- portunity, they will spend it at school for whole- some food, otherwise on the street. The street lunch is of cheap material priced high. Every time they buy it, children get wrong impressions about what constitutes food and how much good food a penny or a nickel will buy. 9. The annual food expenditure of children is very great. In June, 1915, Cleveland had 77,833 children in her public elementary schools. Judging from other cities, each one of these children spends about $1.50 for food each school year, or a total of approximately $116,750 per school year. 10. The Philanthropy Committee of the Cleve- land Federation of Women^s Clubs has rendered a public service. It began its work in 1909 with the avowed purpose of pointing out the need for a lunch service for exceptional children, and of showing how such a service could be administered. 11. The Committee has successfully accomplished its purpose. It should now be relieved from further responsibility for the lunch service. The function of a private organization is to experiment and demon- 141 strate. It cannot eventuate on a large scale, and it should not if it could. The function of a public or- ganization is to eventuate on a large scale. It can seldom experiment and it lacks freedom and flexi- bility in demonstration. The time has come for Cleveland to eventuate on a large scale. 12. To organize lunches throughout the elementary schools would require no great outlay beyond initial equipment, since with proper management the busi- ness will be big enough to pay its own way, particu- larly if it is combined with the high school lunch service. The latter is organized on a large scale; the elementary service is partially organized; the two should be centralized and consolidated. The advan- tages of such a plan are discussed in the following chapter on high school lunches. 142 CHAPTER VII HIGH SCHOOL LUNCH SERVICE Lunch at school offers a natural opportunity for students to get better acquamted with others in differ- ent sections and years, and to meet teachers outside the classroom. Here American and foreign children alike may learn social customs without embarrass- ment. Children of the rich are often sent to private schools where much emphasis is laid on training given in social usage at table. Poise and a gracious manner, real assets at home or at work, come only after long familiarity with the amenities of life. A school meal can contribute a part to this needed training of the young people in our public schools. The school can control the kind, quality, and cost of food sold and service given. It can make this busi- ness, supported entirely by students' money, an edu- cational opportunity for every child in school by so planning the service that it becomes a practice course in spending. The educational program is based on the fact that everyone needs to know the relation of wholesome food to health, and of health to efficient living; the value to the body of various foods for repair and 143 building of tissue or doing work; how soon and how quickly foods can be digested and utilized. To be of value, this knowledge must be used and the lunch- room is a fine place to try it out. Here children can form sane habits of eating. It is not enough for them to like wholesome food; they must learn to buy it and eat it, whether in school or out. Every time any one buys an article, he gets an idea about it in terms of its cost and use, its value, and quality. Manufacturers all know the worth of this repeated impression. They spend much money and take great pains to tell in persuasive and con- vincing tones how cheap and useful, valuable and fine, their product is. They hunt up special names to help them sell their wares. They register names, brands, and trade marks because their money value is so great. In many cities manufacturers and jobbers alike are now competing for school lunch business which is already big and steadily growing bigger. But children not only spend money; they intro- duce into their homes new goods which they like. This makes of every child an advertising agent and from the manufacturer's point of view this is most desirable. It is also desirable from the school point of view if the school has planned and organized its lunch to this end. The street business, too, is a real one and it gives children ideas about what consti- tutes food, what it costs, and what the return is, but the ideas often are wrong and the food, even if harm- less, is high priced. 144 o o o :3 o O O o c3 o 'S a CD W o o S-i a CD 03 School Lunches Not New in Cleveland For 16 years before 1909 there was haphazard pro- vision for Cleveland high school students at lunch time. Lunch wagons went to the school, or near-by stores served hot meals. In addition, several prin- cipals made arrangements with caterers to serve basket lunches on the premises. In 1909 the board of high school principals, backed by the superintendent of schools, asked for a longer school session and a 45 minute lunch period. The board considered the matter but decided that ''owing to lack of adequate dining room facilities in the high schools, it is inad- visable to make any changes at this time in the pres- ent high school sessions.'' A short time later the school architect reported, ''Arrangements for lunch facilities are feasible at East, West, South, Lincoln, and Glenville high schools, involving no special changes in architecture except at South and Glenville High, '' and that same summer lunchrooms were installed in the schools mentioned and at Normal School and the High School of Commerce. At East Technical High School a lunchroom had been equipped the preceding year, but at Central, because of its size and lack of ade- quate space, it was deemed inadvisable to install the service. From its opening in 1911, until 1914, West Technical ran its own lunchroom; in 1914 this lunch- room was incorporated into the regular lunch system. Most of these high school lunchrooms, when open- ed, were operated by the same people who had for- merly sold basket lunches. The new arrangement put 10 145 the salespeople under yearly contract with the Board of Education on the '^concessionnaire'' plan. In the contract the Board of Education agreed ^Ho furnish all the necessary equipment, as well as heat, Ught, gas, and water, sufficient for the proper maintenance of the lunchrooms,'' and 'Ho replace all: equipment rendered useless through natural wear and tear.'' The concessionnaire agreed to ''replace or pay for all equipment lost or destroyed in any manner other than through natural wear and tear; to furnish food of a quality approved by the supervisor of high school luncheon rooms; and to sell the same in accordance with the uniform scale of prices approved by the said supervisor of high school luncheon rooms; and to re- port each week to the said supervisor the total re- ceipts, total expenditures, the total number fed, and total number employed." The contract is terminable "at the will of either party upon 30 days' notice." Two Distinct Policies with Regard to School Lunch Service Cleveland's method is one of several ways which school boards in the United States have worked out for dealing with the high school lunch problem. These methods may be classified in two distinct groups. In the first case, the lunchroom is run to benefit those who serve lunch. In the second case, it is organized and run to benefit those who buy lunch. Cleveland's place is in the first group, for although 146 lunchrooms were equipped by the Board and are supervised by a supervisor of lunches who ranks as assistant in the division of medical inspection, an important factor in determining the quality, quantity and price of food sold is still a steady profit for the concessionnaire. This plan is followed in many other cities, for example, New York, where, at Wadleigh High School, a student organization runs the lunch and receives the profit from it; or at Washington Irving High School, which, — counters and tables ex- cepted, — a caterer equipped and runs at a profit. In the second group are cities such as Boston, where the Women's Industrial and Educational Union partially equipped the lunchrooms and runs them at cost with the expectation of eventually turn- ing them over to the school system; or Philadelphia, where the Board of Education employs a Superin- tendent of Lunches to organize and provide meals at cost. Rochester, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo follow simi- lar plans. It is obvious that if the main purpose of the lunchroom is to give children good food at low cost, this plan is the better. Extent of Service in Cleveland In 1914-1915 lunch service was provided for the Normal School and all high schools except two, Col- lingwood and Central. The average daily attendance in the normal and high schools was 8,043, and of those students 6,715 or 84 per cent were given lunchroom facilities. The total business done was $36,777. This 147 year, 1915-1916, a larger number of students, actu- ally and proportionally, will enjoy this privilege, since the service was extended to Central in Septem- ber. With this great increase in numbers served, it seems probable that for 1915-1916 the business will be close to $45,000. Standards for High School Meals The time of service for high school lunches through- out the country is uniform. They are served at mid- day and take the place of a meal which for many families is the main meal of the day. Every lunch department should take this condition into account, and plan so as to provide a substantial meal for chil- dren who miss the home dinner, as well as a Kght lunch for children who will get dinner at home in the evening. While this problem is not so difficult as that which confronts the elementary service, be- cause children are older and have more money to spend, it nevertheless calls for skilful management on the part of the director. The chief requirement for a light lunch is fuel value, but if lunch is appe- tizing and bulky enough to satisfy a child^s hunger, the fuel requirement is likely to be met. Planning dinner is a much more difficult task. In the average household dinner is the meal which furnishes not only a large amount of the day's re- quirements of fuel, but also a large proportion of the necessary protein (which has many uses other than fuel value) and the greater part of the inorganic 148 salts — ^the whole in such form as to stimulate the digestive processes and keep the alimentary tract in tone. In the following discussion Cleveland's high school lunch service is reviewed with this general standard as the basis for comparison. Lunch Menus Lunch menus vary from school to school but follow a similar plan. At the academic and commercial schools the menu calls for a soup, a meat, two vege- tables, a salad or relish, milk, one or two sandwiches, bread and butter, crackers, a homemade dessert, pie, and often cake, ice cream, and sweet chocolate. The technical schools, which have a heavier program and a longer day, increase the variety by adding to the list an extra meat or meat substitute, an extra vegetable, and more desserts. There is no uniform practice with regard to menu display. Several schools have no menu, while in others it is written in a flowing hand on some incon- spicuous blackboard. The following is a typical menu in the Cleveland high schools : 1 cent Vegetable soup 4 cents Pickle 1 Beef stew 6 '' Crackers 1 Mashed potatoes 4 " Peach tapioca 5 Creamed potatoes 5 " Pie, apple and cocoa- Baked beans 5 " nut custard 5 Beet salad 5 " Orange and banana 5 Apple sauce 5 " Ice cream 5 Roll and butter 2 " Milk 3 149 This menu as given offers a generous list of dishes from which to choose either a Ught lunch or a sub- stantial dinner, but comparison of actual menus and food served in different schools indicates a need for greater care and uniformity in the daily menu. In some schools the range of choice is too great, in others too small. In all it is uneven. Vegetable soup is always vegetable soup and the price is four cents; but price is the only constant factor, for the materials used vary from school to school. That is, a nickel will buy more food, often of better quality, in one school than it will in another. Attractiveness, too, varies throughout the system. Baked beans in little hot brown bean pots are appetizing. Served on a large, tepid, stone plate they would be quite the con- trary, especially if they had been dished some time before serving. Each concessionnaire has her own recipes and uses her own judgment as to the proportion of differ- ent ingredients used and the result to be obtained. With such a plan, a wide variation in product is to be expected and is found. A few schools have very good cooking to balance a few more where it is very poor. In the majority, however, it is '^good enough if one is hungry. '' Yet, so far as can be ascertained, concessionnaires work equally hard and are equally interested in their work. The supervisor of high school lunches has stan- dardized certain foods, such as ice cream, sweet choc- olate, and milk. The latter is now furnished in indi- vidual bottles by one of the best dairies in the city. 150 All other supplies are chosen by the individual con- cessionnaires, who are entirely responsible for the service. In a number of schools they prepare the food themselves, which increases their difficulties for they are frequently interrupted by tradespeople, by lunchroom helpers asking questions, by stray students who need attention, and by teachers on diet who want beef juice or an eggnog, or by other teachers who have a free hour and want a special meal. Lunch has to be prepared in between these demands and dishes are sometimes ready long before the regular lunch period. Service The technical high schools have a longer day than others and divide their time into nine periods, so ar- ranged that each student has at least one vacant period between 11:30 and 1:30. This time he takes for lunch and recreation. In the academic and commercial schools, students have 20 minutes in which to buy lunch, eat it, and go to and from classrooms. This is too short. The noon period should be long enough to enable children and teachers to relax, to have a quiet, restful meal, and to spend a few extravagant minutes as they please before going on with the afternoon's work. Industry is gradually learning the limitations of speeding up, and that fatigue does not make for effi- ciency. In this connection the school might profit- ably learn a lesson from good factory practice, which tries in every way to lessen the strain of the workers. 151 When they can, principals relieve the pressure by allowing students who have free periods immediately before or after recess to buy then, but the majority have to be served at one time. This is difficult to do. Rooms are small and counters placed to save space rather than time. Many rooms have but one en- trance and students get jammed there as well as at the counter, but they are considerate and wait pa- tiently for their turn. They enjoy their common meal and eat it in as leisurely a manner as the time and space at their disposal will permit. Two 45 minute periods with students divided into two groups or perhaps overlapping, more student aids to facili- tate service, and careful counter arrangement with better and uniform provision for receiving money, would largely correct these difficulties. More than time saving, however, should be con- sidered in arranging a lunch counter. A prominent position on the counter makes an article sell well. Students do not entirely stop buying pie because it has been pushed into the background and milk has taken its place on the counter, but they do buy more milk and less pie than formerly. The sale of almost any article can be increased if it is skilfully '^fea- tured.'' The lunchroom manager should bear this in mind and feature new dishes like rice with creamed sauce which she wants to introduce, or old ones such as apple tapioca that are more wholesome than popular. During lunch period students help serve. They are selected by principal or teachers. Their period of 152 service is irregular, depending on how well they like the work and how well they do it. The concession- naire gives them what directions they get and usually they have a particular task assigned them. Require- ments as to neatness and clean hands vary with the individual concessionnaire. Students do not have regular uniforms, although some girls wear aprons. At Commercial and West Technical boys act as cashiers. Both boys and girls are on duty from 10 to 20 minutes, and receive in return a 10 to 20 cent lunch. West Technical follows a different plan from the other schools. Lunchroom work there is done by students under direction of the concessionnaire and a teacher of domestic science. Senior students in domestic science take care of the storeroom, do the cooking, and much of the serving. Boys are all paid for their service in cash or in lunches, or both. Girls receive lunch but no payment for their work. This counts as laboratory work, and is not charged up against the lunchroom. In addition to the students, two women are employed on full time to prepare vegetables, clean the rooms, and do odd jobs gen- erally. Location and Equipment of Lunchrooms Space available for lunchrooms and kitchens differs in the various schools, but equipment is much alike. Six years ago, when it was installed, no one realized how great a saving of time and labor could be effected through careful selection and arrangement of equip- 153 ment. Since then we have come far in lunchroom management. Today each piece of equipment is con- sidered with a view to its purpose in an organized plan, and it is placed where it can be used with a minimum expenditure of time and energy. As Cleve- land's lunchroom equipment is renewed, careful thought should be given to effecting such economy. The cost of installing the service, keeping rooms in repair, replacing worn-out equipment and buying new, cannot be accurately determined, as the total sums spent are lost in a mass of records. When the rooms were equipped, the executive department charged expenditures against schools only, not against departments as well, and the same plan was followed in recording maintenance costs. However, the present administration has greatly improved the system of accounting and in the future such infor- mation will be available. Lunchrooms are easy of access from both school and street. Adjacent halls and stairways are excep- tionally clean and well lighted, but the space given is small and during the lunch period there is much crowding in certain of the academic and commercial schools due to the large number of children who must be served in a few minutes. The technical schools have more space given over to lunchrooms, as well as a relay plan of service. With one exception all lunchrooms are in the base- ment with kitchens and storage rooms adjoining or close at hand. At the High School of Commerce the kitchen is between two lunchrooms; at the technical 154 schools, adjoining; at East High and Glenville, kit- chen and lunchrooms are combined by pushing the counter further out into the room and doing the cook- ing behind it. At South High a large, airy, third- floor room is used for lunch purposes. It is the most attractive of all the rooms but so many flights up and so far away from the street, where students like to promenade, that many of them will not make the trip. In only a few cases is storage space adequate. In some schools it is so placed that it cannot well be used. For example, at West High, steam pipes run over-head and heat the room so much that food spoils. Condition and Care As a whole, the physical condition of lunchrooms is good and relation between concessionnaire and jani- tor unusually cooperative and harmonious. Rooms are swept at least once a day and are mopped up or scrubbed once every week or 10 days and more fre- quently if the weather is bad. Tables are scrubbed every day and wiped off before recess time. Dishes are very heavy and plain white. They are most un- attractive but they are clean and whole. The few waste cans in the lunchrooms catch some, but not all, stray papers. Students have so little time for lunch that they do not return soiled dishes to the counter except at Commercial. This clutters the room and makes much extra work for concession- naires. 155 Lighting Lunchrooms and halls are better lighted than are most basement rooms. Windows are cleaned fre- quently, outside by the janitor, inside by the con- cessionnaire. Electric lights are placed in dark cor- ners, and ceilings and upper walls are colored white or light gray, lower walls darker gray or tan. Kitchen lighting is not so good; they are gloomy, with insuffi- cient lights poorly placed, and cold gray cement floors, slippery wet in front of sink and stove. This semi-darkness has a depressing effect on the force. These dim kitchens are not only unattractive, but are poorly kept, floors especially. Much of the time the women stand at their work. Slight changes, more lights, slat mats, working stools, and provision for working clothes would make the women more com- fortable and increase their working efficiency. Ventilation It is difficult to ventilate the lunchrooms and there is no uniform plan for doing it. Most of the rooms are not connected with the central system, and are over- crowded. In wet and windy weather, rain and dust blow in through open windows, covering food and children alike. Better ventilation might be had by covering all food and thoroughly airing the rooms before and between recesses, but this plan will not do for the kitchens. In several, notably South High, the heat is almost unendurable and special mechan- ical ventilation should be provided. 156 Working Force Lunchroom attendants are employed and discharged by the concessionnaire. A few of them are young, but the majority are middle-aged women who sup- plement the family income by this work. What train- ing they have, they received in their own homes or from the concessionnaire who directs them and regu- lates their hours of work and rate of payment. There is no uniform rate per hour. The women work three to nine hours per day according to the needs of the school; the highest paid worker gets $8 a week for an eight-hour day. There is no policy with regard to payment during illness, school holidays, or summer vacation, no uniform standards for employing work- ers, and no system of promotion : pensions have ap- parently never been thought of. In view of the cir- cumstances which brought the system into being, such lack of uniformity is natural, but the work has now reached a stage where a definite policy should be formulated. The school lunch department is a department of the public school system; but both are business enterprises, and should be run, like any others, on sound business principles. One of these is that industry must bear the costs of production. These costs include, among others, provision for unem- ployment, illness, and old age pensions. The school has formulated such a policy with reference to its teachers. The lunch department is still in process of making, but its workers should be taken into ac- count and an effort made to insure for them an equal 157 measure of social consideration with others of the school's employees. CONCESSIONNAIRES When lunchrooms were established, concessionnaires were selling lunch at the schools and those who wished to continue under the new arrangement did so. With the exception of a colored man caterer at East High School, they are women of 35 and over. They have had no specific training for their work and invest their time only when they undertake it. The only supervision to which they are subject is that of the supervisor of lunches who has authority to inspect their work and make suggestions. She may report any violation of contract and can hold conferences with the concessionnaires for the purpose of talking over changes and improvements. TABLE 6.— PROFIT MADE BY LUNCHROOM CONCESSION- NAIRES IN CLEVELAND DURING 1914-16 School Profit during year East Technical $942 Lincoln 811 West Technical 762 East 610 Glenville 606 Commerce 591 West 473 South 318 Normal 280 East Commerce 124 Concessionnaires receive no fixed salary. At the end of the week they get what is left after food and labor bills have been paid. This amount varies from 158 :3 o o en O bO a a o o o o G :3 o o week to week and from school to school, not only actually, but proportionally. One month there may be a very good profit; the next a large deficit. Con- cessionnaires are interested in and earnest about their work and all but one give full time. Their in- comes range from $124 to $942 per year, as shown in Table 5 for the school year 1914-15. Supervision The supervisor of high school lunchrooms is ap- pointed by the director of schools upon recommenda- tion of the director of medical inspection to whom she is immediately responsible. Each week she receives from concessionnaires signed reports covering num- ber of portions served, receipts, profits, and ex- penditures for food and service. She visits schools to oversee service, to confer with principals and concessionnaires regarding details of work, and to arrange a uniform food and price scale. She has heavy responsibility but lacks the authority to make her judgments active for she has only the power of recommendation. Any breach of contract must be reported to the director of medical inspec- tion, who transmits the report and his recommenda- tion to the director of schools before any action is taken. High School Lunches a Big Business Every year the proportion, as well as the number of children who go to high school, is increasing and every 159 year more of them depend on the school to furnish their noonday meal. The potential business in any of the larger cities is big; for the whole country it is enormous. In six other cities where service is organized high school students spend on an average $5 to $10 per school year, as indicated in Table 6 which follows: TABLE 6.— AVERAGE RECEIPTS PER STUDENT FOR SEVEN CITIES WITH SUPERVISED HIGH SCHOOL SERVICE, 1914-15 City Boston* Columbus Pittsburght Cleveland New York Philadelphia Rochester Average High daily at- schools tendance at school 16 14,235 1 755 5 3,500 10 6,763 1 800 17 14,000 2 2,900 Total receipts $73,446.00 4,078.00 19,000.00 36,777.00 4,958.00 117,000.00 28.500.00 Average receipts per stu- dent per year $5.16 5.40 5.43 5.44 6.20 8.36 9.83 * Estimated actual per capita expenditure of students who buy lunch Boston $10, Pittsburgh $15. t Estimated 1915-1916. A study of last year's business in Cleveland brings out several interesting facts. Table 7 shows how the average per capita expenditure for ^11 schools is low as compared with four other cities, while the amount spent by students who do buy lunch at school in- dicates that they have fully as much money to spend as do children in other places. In this city the aver- age student who gets lunch at school spends 10 or 11 cents for it. To the writer it seems probable that those students who patronize lunch wagons spend 160 about as much for their lunch as do other students in the same school who use the lunch counter. TABLE 7.— AMOUNT AND COST OF BUSINESS DONE BY CLEVE- LAND HIGH SCHOOL LUNCHROOMS DURING 1914-15 Average Total Total Average receipts Average Average attend- receipts portions per stu- price service ance served dent per per por- cost per at school year tion portion Commerce 669 $2,973 22,436 $4.44 $.133 $.041 East Com- merce 135 272 2,991 2.01 .091 .042 East High 1,016 3,999 35,819 3.94 .112 .032 Glenville 800 3,826 54,528 4.78 .070 .020 Lincoln 465 4,992 37,645 10.74 .133 .036 South 422 1,692 23,674 4.01 .071 .026 West High 516 3,934 52,255 7.62 .075 .022 East Techni- cal 1.710 7,423 54,515 4.34 .136 .044 West Tech- nical 800 6,813 61,459 8.52 .111 .025 Normal 230 853 4,375 3.71 .195 .068 Total 6,763 $36,777 349.697 $5.44 $.105 $.029 In the writer's opinion the present lunch wagon busi- ness if handled by the lunch counter would bring up the annual receipts of the high school service to almost double their present amount or to about $70,000 a year. A comparison of average daily attendance and of total yearly receipts shows a wide variation in busi- ness done in schools of about an equal daily atten- dance. Moreover, this variation is not between aca- demic and technical, nor academic and commercial schools, but between school and school. These differ- ences may arise because the academic schools have a n 161 short recess with overcrowded lunchrooms and slow counter service, while lunch wagons which stand in front of every school, are easy of access, and offer a change from school food. The latter is more attrac- tive than that which the wagons provide, but its variety is limited, and its preparation uncertain. Place of Lunch Service in the School System School lunches meet a natural need of all children. The purpose of the service is to teach children to choose wisely the food they buy. The conduct of school lunches is a business, an art, and a science. The department must ^'deliver the goods '\' it must run smoothly and please its patrons. This done, it is free to consider its working standards and how to better them. The superintendent of lunches should have the same rank as the director of any other special di- vision and be compensated accordingly. She should be subordinate to the educational department, for her work bears direct relation to all health teaching in the schools and offers an opportunity to teach children the ethics and economics of spending, and the various factors affecting the price of school meals and restaurant meals. Lunch should be of a quality to satisfy the super- intendent and in quantity to tempt children. Re- ceipts should cover food, service, and limited main- tenance charges. In Cleveland, last year, the di- vision did a big business. In round numbers high 162 school and normal students spent $36,800 for 350,000 portions. Except for supervision and equipment, the school lunch should be self-supporting. It has no resources but the day's receipts, and these must cover all ex- penses. If only for this reason, funds should be turned over quickly, bills discounted, '^futures'' ordered, and goods bought on a favorable market. The superintendent, therefore, should be consti- tuted a special agent in the purchasing department, authorized to buy necessary articles, such as equip- ment and supplies, and to pay bills. Her accounts should be audited at regular intervals and the ac- countant's report filed with other school accounts. This type of organization works well in other cities. In Philadelphia the superintendent of lunches has the same rank as the director of any other special division — medical inspection, physical train- ing, or household arts. She passes upon all initial equipment, renews it, buys all food, and pays the bills. She is subject to a special committee of the Board of Education and the department of superin- tendence. Her accounts are audited once a month by a public accountant whose report is filed with other school reports. The Pittsburgh system is run on the same general plan, while in Rochester it difTers slightly. There the superintendent passes on all equipment, orders all food, and 0. K.'s, but does not pay, bills. The cen- tral office pays them as soon as she presents them. Boston has a well-organized high school lunch ser- 163 vice managed by the Woman's Educational and In- dustrial Union. In New York City the School Lunch Committee of the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor is responsible for service in 44 elementary schools and one high school. Eventually these two organizations expect their respective school boards to assume responsibility for lunch service and organize it on a departmental basis. To realize these possibiUties, the division must be directed by a superintendent who has business abil- ity, educational insight, and social vision. She must be able to organize, deputize, and supervise. She should have full authority over all details of work for which she is responsible and should be consulted on all questions concerning location and arrangement of rooms, and the choice, purchase, and placement of all equipment. She should be responsible, at least in part, for purchasing all food, and wholly respon- sible for preparing and serving it. School Cooperation In all schools principals and teachers patronize lunchrooms, where a table is set aside for their special use. They are interested in the lunches and ready to cooperate with the department in bettering the service. This interest, recognized, coordinated, and directed, might do much in the organization and maintenance of a uniform standard of service throughout the system. 164 o fl 1— ( o Gi CJ y—i ^4-1 o o CO , 1 T$ '^ fl ^ c3 T3 ^ O 9^; C o CD > o . 03 • .-H c3 g 'Hh 03 o 22 02 o ^ c ^ ^H * ""^ o o a fi ^HH . ^ 73 § b/3 >% O) ,— — 1 0) S _c3 03 >i Qj G a 0^ bC 0) S o3 ^ ^ .rj k cc 5 -13 0) ^ ;3 j:: o u HO Greater Use of Lunchrooms Possible Reorganization, at no additional cost to the school board, would greatly increase the use of school lunch- rooms. They are already equipped, have regular customers, and do a big business. The average per capita receipts however are little more than half as great as for high school students in Philadelphia or Rochester, and if the high average expenditures for Lincoln, West High, and West Technical were counted out, the average per capita expenditure of Cleveland high school students would be $3.90 per year or the lowest of the seven cities listed in Table 6. Concessionnaires are earnest and hard-working, but they lack the peculiar training, skill, and exper- ience requisite for the successful conduct of so com- plex a service as school lunches. Concessionnaires have no professional reputations at stake and no professional standards; they did not train for the special field in which they work, but are paid for their labor. Frequently they receive for it as much as do grade teachers who specialized in household arts at normal school or college. Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Rochester have put trained people on good salaries in charge of their school lunch service and the results have justified the experiment. A centralized system of buying and accounting saves enough to cover not only food and labor costs at each school, but super- vision and other office costs. Of these cities only Philadelphia and Boston do as big a business as 165 Cleveland, but, in all, this type of organization has been successful and has paid its own way. Waste of Present System The present system is not economical or efficient. It is neither uniform nor standardized and provides no way of detecting and preventing waste. Buying is done by untrained people who follow no uniform system and who order in retail quantities. Their purchases lack uniformity and are made from so many firms that they can get advantageous prices from none. Storage space is inadequate, often situated where it cannot be used, for example, at West High, where hot steam pipes run over-head, or at Commercial, where it is so cold that goods freeze. In several instances ice chests are inconveniently located; so big that concessionnaires cannot afford to use them; or placed under uncovered steam pipes where melting ice runs away with the profit. Recipes are not standardized and vary from school to school in quahty, quantity, cost of ingredients used, and product obtained. Although prices are uniform, portions of soup, of vegetables, and of meat vary so much in size and food value that lunch at some schools is much more costly than at others. There are few graded serving utensils to help the server gage accurately each helping so that serving such dishes as soup, mashed potatoes, or baked beans is neither quick nor uniform. 166 ;3 3 j:3 O SCO Equipment is not especially designed for the par- ticular use to which it is put, nor placed to save time and labor. Lunchroom helpers are not ''routed'^ in their work. They waste time, get in each other's way, repeat work or overlook it, and hurry too much. On the one hand low-grade people are being paid high- grade wages to do low-grade work, and on the other too low wages are paid for certain kinds of highly specialized work, such as buying or recipe making. Concessionnaires are generally responsible for more kinds of work than they can do well. Accounting is haphazard. Schools keep their own accounts, and every week send the central office statements covering expenditures for food and labor, profit, receipts, and estimated portions sold. These records are too poorly checked to insure accuracy and too meager to offer any real basis for comparison with results obtained at other schools. Economy of Consolidated Lunch Service A uniform method of record keeping and cost ac- counting would discard unessentials and throw into high light economy or extravagance of food and labor in individual schools. A central office can make a comparative study of equipment and materials, standardize them, and make them uniform where it is advisable to do so. It can compare variations in food costs, receipts, and profits by schools, or months, or both. It can find and avoid waste of food, time, and labor. It can carry on ex- 167 periments in different schools simultaneously, and utilize the findings of one for the benefit of all. It fixes responsibility and renders a maximum service at minimum cost. Summary 1. This report is based on at least one visit made to every school during the lunch period; on interviews with concessionnaires and principals at all schools; on careful study of minutes of Board of Education since 1909 and of lunch records on file in the division of medical inspection; and on conferences with the supervisor of lunches, the director of medical in- spection, the school architect, the supervisor of requisitions and suppUes, and the director of schools. 2. The most progressive cities have consciously formulated a method of meeting the school lunch problem. This group includes Boston, Philadelphia, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Toledo, and Cleveland. 3. In the United States high school lunchrooms are of two sorts — those run by concessionnaires who try to make them yield the largest possible personal profit, and those run by educational employees with the aim of putting extra profit back into increased food and better service. Cleveland's lunchrooms are of the first sort. 4. Cleveland has an exceptional opportunity to do good work in this field. Six years ago the school board adopted a progressive poUcy regarding high school lunch service. It supplied all necessary equip- ment free of charge and three years ago appointed 168 "m O c3 > 02 o o CO O o G a supervisor paid by school funds. Lunch is served by concessionnaires who apply for the privilege; they give their time and receive in return all profit from the lunch. Last year this service was provided for 83 per cent of Cleveland's high school students. 5. The high school lunch service is a midday ser- vice and takes the place of home meals. It has a double task : to serve a light lunch for children whose main meal comes at night, and a substantial dinner to children who miss the family dinner by being at school. Cleveland performs this task in certain of her high schools, but in the majority the menu is not well enough standardized to offer daily an ac- ceptable noon dinner. The remedy for this condi- tion lies in centralization and close supervision of each individual school. 6. The physical condition of lunchrooms is good and the relations between concessionnaires and custodians are cooperative and harmonious. Prin- cipals and teachers are interested and are ready to cooperate in any plan to extend and improve the service. Lunchroom patronage varies greatly from school to school. Where children are thoroughly satisfied with the service lunch wagons do a compara- tively small business. 7. The school lunch division should reach all chil- dren; it should provide wholesome and nutritious food for them at cost, train them in sane habits of eating, and teach them to choose wisely what food they buy. In Cleveland last year 6,715 students spent $36,777 at school, or $5.44 apiece. In Phila- 169 delphia the same number spent $56,070, or $8.35 apiece. Cleveland can equal this record and increase the usefulness of her plant by consolidating her sys- tem, and including in it service in the elementary schools. 8. Administration of a consolidated system re- quires the service of a highly trained and experienced dietitian, who will be able to centralize all buying and accounting, organize and standardize equipment, service, labor, wages, and food, and combine old methods and originate new ones for the conduct of the service. 9. Increased expenditure involved in reorganizing high school lunches will be met by increased profits from lunchrooms due to bigger business and better management. 10. Cleveland's opportunity to do significant and constructive work through her school lunchrooms is exceptional. She has all the necessary equipment, but at present lacks the proper organization and neces- sary enthusiasm. One competent person with author- ity equal to the responsibility of the position and a vital interest in the work could make Cleveland a leader in this field. 170 CLEVELAND EDUCATION SURVEY REPORTS These reports can be secured from the Survey Committee of the Cleveland Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio. They will be sent postpaid for 25 cents per volume with the exception of "Measuring the Work of the Public Schools" by Judd, "The Cleveland School Survey" by Ayres, and "Wage Earn- ing and Education" by Lutz. These three volumes will be sent for 50 cents each. All of these reports may be secured at the same rates from the Division of Education of the Russell Sage Foundation, New York City. Child Accounting in the PubUc Schools. — Ayres. Educational Extension — Perry. Education through Recreation — Johnson. Financing the Public Schools — Clark. Health Work in the Public Schools — Ayres. Household Arts and School Lunches — Boughton. Measuring the Work of the Public Schools — ^Judd. Overcrowded Schools and the Platoon Plan — Hart- well. School Buildings and Equipment — Ayres. Schools and Classes for Exceptional Children — Mit- chell. School Organization and Administration — ^Ayres. The Public Library and the Public Schools — Ayres and McKinnie. The School and the Immigrant — Miller. The Teaching Staff — ^Jessup. What the Schools Teach and Might Teach — Bobbitt. The Cleveland School Survey (Summary) — Ayres. Boys and Girls in Commercial Work — Stevens. Department Store Occupations — O'Leary. Dressmaking and Millinery — Bryner. Railroad and Street Transportation — Fleming. The Building Trades — Shaw. The Garment Trades — Bryner. The Metal Trades— Lutz. The Printing Trades — Shaw. Wage Earning and Education (Summary) — Lutz, Date Due '..-dS'iy MAR oC 1 1992 1 I BOSTON COLLEGE 3 9031 01714164 9 l!Mi:^i59 DATE DUE , ■I 'ill; I i