Of Interest to Women.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 8, 7 May 1920, Page 12

Of Interest to Women.

DOMESTIC TRAINING. Women who take up domestic work need training, and they get it — of a kind. They get it in the first place, in their own homes, where naturally they learn more or less to do things as their mothers did them, and to do what their mothers did, no more and sometimes less. Is the home a good home., with conveniences and refinements, the girl will understand, use, and require thes'e ; if on the other hand it is a slovenly or squalid or illmanaged house, half-furnished and more than half dirty, the women who come from it to make homes of their own or to help in the house-keeping of othexs can hardly be expected to be models. Environment is a very large factor in training, and while superior intellig'ence and aptitude may surmount the obstacles , -and supply the defkiences of an unfavourable early environment, it is doubtful, very doubtful whether the same can be said of the average person. Can any woman then expect ravv girls frpm poor homes to'know by instinct how to set an elaborate meal or do fine laundry work or cooking, or even appreciate the degree of cleanliness required in a decent household? Those interested in social welfare have got past the stage of expecting competent house-maflagement from person® with no training or worse than no training in the arts and crafts required for such competence. Then in New Zealand, as in some other countries, an attempt is mad© to supply the- training in the schools. It is a good idea, but to my mind, badly carried out. The training is begun Aoo early in some departments ; it is at once ovcr-ambitious and inadequate ; and we have not enougn of the rigbt kind of places in which to carry it on. 1 am sure that children should be taught very early to sew, knit and crotehet, iiseful arts that require in the muscles of hand and arm a dexterity to be acquired only by early practice. The early teaching of these things is on the same basis as the teaching of music, swimming, and gymnastics. Long practice Is required to form the reflex action, unconscious beoause habiluaJ. Cookery I maintain need not be learned before the age of sixteen, nor laundry work. Dressmaking and the use of the sewing-machine too could be taker at a much later stage than hand-sewing; and the aesthetics of house management should be a final stage, reached at the age of about eighteen. In a properly elaborated system, however, with proper facilities order and cleanliness, with the care for beauty, should be inculcated from the earliest, by training in habit, by the example of surroundings, resulting in a taste for these things, an eye for them and a distaste for all disorder, dirt and ugliness. In all girls' schools there should be some means and facility for teaching all these things, sewing and the making of all kinds of simple garments, plain-cook-ing laundry work, the best methods of cleaning with a study of labour-saving household management and the a-esthetics o* house-building, furnishing and decoration. I would add also elementary hygiene and first aid. The training should be given in stages at suitable periods in the girl's education, and being of a practical nature, would serve as a relief from abstract studies. It would bring to light, much capability that is now lost or obscure and it would revolutionise the world of domestic labour. Soon, instead of the present outcry for domestic workers, we should have competent girls, willing to take up the work — under decent conditions of wage and status — instead of the hoary jest about "young wife's pudding," we should rejoice in model homes. I would not- make any branch of .p^iysical or chemical science a part of this domestic training ; let these things b.e learned in their place, which is the laboratory and not the kitchen, and let the students be taught to apply their science where it is needod. All girls of course do not wish to go in for domestic work, and to make domestic compulsory for all, is to put a heavy handicap on those who are working for other ends — literary or artistie for instance — in comparison with boys, unless some practical study is made compulsory for the latter also. I would make all boys go through an equivaleht ourse in hygiene and first aid (equally necessary for them) in military drill and in agriculture or horticulture. If the women are to keep model houses, let the men be taught to keep model gardens, no home is complet© withont both. We are a long way from realising this scheme. Our Teehnical Colleges have good classes, but these are not sufncient. What is really needed is the domestic science hostel, where a compk te practical training is possible. I should like to see tbc present kind of Teehnical College and

I socondary school give way to domestic ' ! hostels separate from, but in organic connection with model trade schools and with horticulture and agriculture! institutee, all working in co-opc3raion with the gram ma ' schools which aim at the training of the mind, the memory, the judgment, the atvthetic perceptions, the sympathies, whioh endeavour, in a word to expand or uufold to the utmost the power to thlnk jusfcly and to feel rightlyv. Let us aim at a training that will put. idealg into our children's minds and capabilities into their hands and we shall be working systematically towards our goaJ. of a good home the foundation of a true commonwealth. ''