Household arts and school lunches

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 sections will be published as separate monographs. In addition there will be a larger volume giving a summary of the findings and recommendations relating to the regular work of the public schools, and a second similar volume giving the summary 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 list will be found in the back of this volume, together with prices.

Table Of Contents

PAGE

Foreword 5

List of Tables 10

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 curriculum 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 grammar 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 consider household arts for girls the equivalent of vocational education for boys.

Cleveland's long experience should make possible a study of the aims, methods, and results of the subject 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 Cleveland school with another, but to picture the present situation and to describe work done ; to seek out motives, 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 elementary school. It outlines 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 participate 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 classes in cooking and sewing were started in several cities which were merged into the first manual training 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 emphasize the vocational nature of this work, are increasing 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 accomplish 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 toward 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 household 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 beginning to give academic recognition to this branch. Finally, in 1909, the American Home Economics

Association was formed with the purpose, as given in the constitution, "of bringing together those interested in the bettering of conditions in the home, the school, the public institution, and the community."

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 Association 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 cooking lessons. The following year, 1887, the cooking department of the Cleveland Domestic Training Association 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 received 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.

Present Instruction Girls who stay in school until they have finished the eighth grade receive four years' instruction in household arts. They have sewing in the fifth and sixth grades and cooking and housewifery, including laundry work, in the seventh and eighth. With few exceptions sewing 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 accommodate 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 providing for 156 children, two training classes for morons at Meyer and the Council Alliance Settlement where 76 are cared for, work for backward children at Longwood, and two model apartments at

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 particular 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 equipment was not recorded. The estimated cost, however, 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 basements 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 light 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.

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 objection 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 positions, and when groups of household arts teachers assemble in conference there is apt to be lively discussion 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 supervises, through visits and individual classroom conferences, the work of special teachers in these subjects and the regular teachers in sewing. The supervisor 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 supervisor is, therefore, forced to spend a large amount of her time keeping up with routine clerical work to the neglect of her heavy supervisory duties. At stated intervals she meets special teachers in conference, 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 consequence of this there is danger that, as the department grows, she will cease to be a supervisor and become 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 favorable 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 College 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 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 unanimous 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 peculiar 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 applies 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 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 presentation of subject matter, and, if she is to do intelligent 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 misunderstanding when questions as to the general function and purpose of household arts are raised. The following 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 persevering 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 fist from which to choose what seems to you most suitable for the particular 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 responsibility, might go a long way towards 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 fines 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 receiving.

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 their work than the average teacher of manual training. 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 supplement their present training by extension courses or summer work. It is too low to hold permanently experienced teachers, or very able ones. Moreover, household arts is a new and rapidly developing field. No teacher can expect to do good work without keeping in touch with its newer phases by attending conferences, at least once in two years, taking summer school work, or being a member of various educational and scientific associations and subscribing to their periodicals. The teacher of household 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 teaching 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 girls to be neat and clean of person and about the house, and that it gives them an interest in household affairs, control over details of household management, and some standards for judging the quality and importance of such work.

Principals of schools with foreign populations say that through cooking and sewing the girls become acquainted 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 keeping 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 attempt 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 household arts teaching. Many parents are immensely " practical" 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 girl's education. They are not troubled as to whether she likes the work or gets anything 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 frequently the building. So the cooking lesson is something 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 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 uniformity about this home practice. Teachers emphasize 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 girl's later life 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, established perhaps 10 years later, is seriously open to question. Household arts is a comparatively 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 September, 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, therefore, 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 arrangement

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

Lesson III Starch

a. Use in body

b. Prepare

1. Plain toast

2. Buttered toast

3. Water toast

4. Milk toast

5. Creamed toast

In such a fashion the old course went on its deadly way, for in their desire to be logical the makers overlooked 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 prominent 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

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 personal 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 Millinery" by Edna Bryner.

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 viewpoint 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 cooking 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 interested group. It is not easy to get children to remember their uniforms and keep them clean, but it can be done if teachers are sufficiently insistent about the matter.

These uniforms are attractive, but they are impractical. 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 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 spontaneous 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, accurate, 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 satisfactory. 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.