One-Sided Education

Review and Herald Publishing Assn. · Washington, D.C. · Dec 31, 1903

One-Sided Education

Many parents go to great pains and expense in giving to their children—and especially the daughters—the best school education their means will afford. Many sacrifices are made and much inconvenience borne that this may be accomplished, and when the “finished product” of the college or young ladies’ school comes home to help make the happiness of the home, it is a great gratification for the old folks to feel that their children have had “as good as the best,” and being now “educated,” they, as well as the young people, imagine they have but to “go forth to conquer,” with the odds in their favor. Most of these young people have learned many things. They are interested in many things,— art, literature, music, golf, college athletics, philanthropy, club work, etc.,—and are able to discuss fluently, and with more or less intelligence, all the popular questions of the day, from the religious down to politics.

But one has but to touch upon the subject of food values, practical hygiene, and the homely virtues of the common kitchen and laundry to see how very one sided their education really is. To be sure, they have the theory—or at least some of them have—of domestic science at their tongues’ end, and can wind the best cook in the crowd all into a tangle with their scientific treatment of the subject; but how many of them can go into the home kitchen, and, with the few homely utensils which have served their mothers so long and so well, get up a good, healthy meal of victuals?

There is no reason why these daughters, and even sons, should not know something about practical matters of this kind. They should be taught to apply, as well as recite, the teachings of chemistry and hygiene, and their interest in the homely “home” duties should not only have been aroused, but stimulated and strengthened, and the value of a practical knowledge of food and food values, and of the hygienic treatment of simple, every-day home matters should have been duly impressed upon their minds.—The Commoner.