HOME ECONOMICS MEETINGS OF THE N. E. A. At the Annual Meeting of the N. E. A. to be held in New York the week of July 3, two Home Economics section meetings are announced for July 4 and July 5, respectively. The meeting on Tuesday, July 4, to be held at the Washington Irving High School, Irving Place and 16th Street; that of Wednesday, July 5, at Teachers College. PROGRAM TUESDAY, JULY 4 Washington Irving High School-5th Floor Lunchroom 10.00 a.m. Continuation classes in household arts Cleo Murtland, Secretary of Women's Work in the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education Teaching practical dietetics C. F. Langworthy, Chief of Office of Home Economics, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture Teaching fabric values Nellie Crooks, Director of Household Economics, Milwaukee-Downer Teaching dress reform through the schools Ethel Ronzone, University of Missouri WEDNESDAY JULY 5 Teachers College, Chapel 2.00 p.m. Sanitation in food shops and markets Donald B. Armstrong, M.D., Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, New York City. Supervision of Home Economics instruction Mrs. Henrietta W. Calvin, Expert in Home Economics, United States With discussion by Emma Jacobs, Director of Domestic Science, Wash- Survey of Home Economics teaching in the Cleveland schools. With discussion by Florence Winchell, Ethical Culture School, New The N. E. A. will also have two programs of special interest to teachers of Home Economics, one on Monday, July 3 at 9.30 a.m. and one on Wednesday, July 5, at 9.30 a.m., both at Concert Hall, Madison Square Garden. THE Journal of Home Economics For those interested in Homemaking, Institution Management, MRS. ALICE P. NORTON, Editor Editorial Board KETURAH E. BALDWIN, Managing Editor MRS. MARY H. ABEL ANNA BARROWS C. F. LANGWORTHY ISABEL ELY LORD NEALE S. KNOWLES, Chairman Extension Education Section Collaborators-The Officers, Members of the Council, and Advisers The Journal of Home Economics is published monthly by the American Home Economics Association. $2.00 A YEAR. FOREIGN $2.25. SINGLE COPIES 25 CENTS HOW TO REMIT. Remittances should be sent by Draft on New York, Express Order or Postal Money Order, payable to the American Home Economics Association. Currency, unless mailed in a registered letter, is at the sender's risk. CHANGE IN ADDRESS. Notice of change in address should be sent Two Weeks before the date of issue on which the change is to take effect. The subscriber's Old Address should be clearly indicated in addition to the New Address. AMERICAN HOME ECONOMICS ASSOCIATION STATION N, BALTIMORE, MD. Entered as second class matter at the Baltimore Post Office Interior of Laundry Showing Washing Machine on Left, Four Hydro-Extractors, Laundry Truck, and Racks Washing Machine Showing Four of the Eight Compartments in Which Each Family's Clothes are Washed THE MILBANK WET-WASH LAUNDRY, NEW YORK CITY. (See page 422.) "First catch your hare!" is a counsel of experience. Where is the woman of leisure? One can imagine the impatient question from the busy mother, the spinster full of affairs, the tired business woman. Perhaps she admittedly exists only in that semi-mythical limbo of the spectacular "smart set," advertised out of all proportion to its numerical importance, where life seems to consist of religiously neglected duties, and hectic and costly pleasures. Certainly in no other sphere in our energetic land will a woman admit that she has leisure. "I should just love to"-study, exercise, read, or even play, one hears so often-"if only I had time!" What are our women doing with their time? There are still twentyfour hours in a day, three hundred and sixty-five days in the yearand most women (the estimate is carefully made) are at liberty to choose what they will do with some of that time. The woman who is the breadwinner for a dependent family cannot be said to have leisure. This applies, of course, only to the bread-winner who supports her family by unskilled labor, and is unable to buy the necessary services which ordinarily would be her duties. The unskilled woman wage earner is seldom a wage earner solely. She is mother, wife, or daughter, and gives to her dependents in the time that remains from her work the services demanded by her position. All other women-from the girl who supports herself by the labor of her hands, from the wife whose husband provides the means of subsistence for the family, however meagre, at one end of the scale, through all grades of affluence to the luxuriously circumstanced wife or daughter of wealthy banker or merchant at the other-all have leisure, that is, time to spend as they choose. The leisure of the working girl is of course limited, and her youth demands that some of it be spent in physical exercise and pleasure. She must have young company, dance, be gay. Nevertheless, it is hers to choose whether all her evenings and holidays shall be so spent or not. That she is often, perhaps usually, incapable of choosing any other form of amusement or interest for her leisure hours is not her fault alone. The larger share of blame must rest upon our still imperfect social organization; but the opportunity exists when she is capable of embracing it. The mother of a large and growing family is also a person of little leisure; but large families seem to be growing beautifully less, and "if this be treason make the most of it!"-too much time may be spent on a family's physical needs. These physical needs of the family engrossed the time and the most of the attention of our grandmothers. When the corn and wheat were raised, ground, and baked on the home premises; the animals killed and the meat cured; flax, cotton, and wool, if not grown, were yet spun and woven at home and there fashioned into garments; when the cobbler became a member of the household while he fitted out the family with shoes; when not only cider, but ale and beer, wine and spirits, were brewed and distilled at home for family use; then the "lady"-the "loaf-giver" as our Anglo-Saxon forbears called her must have found her time much occupied. Whether she did these things with her own hands and the help of her children, or, as we read of Madam Washington, superintended the household affairs as she sat, like Penelope, among her maids, it was an arduous and important work, and left but little unoccupied time. What about the house-mother of today? She may, and probably does buy most of the necessities of life in the shops, finished ready for use. She does this not only because it would be difficult for her to obtain and manufacture the raw materials, if she knew how, but because the finished product is cheaper, produced as it is by machinery and in large quantities. Men, who have a genius for coöperation and coördination, perhaps produced, certainly stimulated, by their need of team work in time of war, have gradually taken women's work into their own hands. They first laid aside the sword for the pruning-hook, and women (to whose early agricultural efforts we owe the development of the cultivated cereals and fruits from the wild ones) were driven-shall we say promoted?— |