A Study Of The Opinions Of Forty Freshmen Girls At Prairie View College About Home Economics Training

The public has been interested in Home Economics for a long time. In the lower grades, sewing was taught as early as 1798; in 1892, the introduction of sewing along with other industrial work in the public schools was legalized in Massachusetts. Domestic science was introduced into a large number of the public schools in the decade from 1880-1890. Courses in Home Economics in 1927 were offered in more than eight thousand public schools and also the number of private secondary schools. It has been found that Homemaking instruction has been given under several different titles. Cooking and sewing developed into domestic science and domestic art or household arts or household economy. Education for home and family life is not new. For generations such education was passed on by the older women to the younger through a long period of apprenticeship beginning when one baby rocked the cradle for the next younger one who had crowded her out and ending when grown up, she made her own wedding dress and went to a home of her own. Homemaking changed little from mother to daughter, just a life outside the home changed little. Grandmother could easily teach granddaughter none making then; she could not today. The industry taking much production out of the home, women went into factories to earn the money to buy both the things which they had previously made at home and many other products which industry offered them. When women left the home it was inevitable that home economics should go into the schools. Home Economics began in the elementary grades because the girls who needed it first 2 were there. Enrollment on the secondary level increasing in the early years of this century, it became a high school subject. This elementary subject elevated to the secondary level was criticized by those interested in the pupils because learning the techniques of cooking and sewing were no* enough, and by those concerned with the high standing of the secondary school because its material made up so largely of skills was not sufficiently intellectual for a high school subject. Science helped in answering both criticisms, the scientific aspects of home economics being emphasized in the selection of content and the methods of science being copied in its teaching. This influence was seen in the stressing of theory, the carrying out of experiments, the using of notebooks, and the providing of laboratory layouts patterned after chemistry